REACTION: Was The Duke Basketball Victory Over SIU Edwardsville Convincing ENOUGH?!

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is the Locked On Podcast Network, celebrating 10 years of your team every day.

Rob Jackson (0:12)

In a game that had no real upside for the Duke Blue Devils, they notch a 43-point victory.

Locked On Blue Devils, we're live. Let's go.

SPEAKER_3 (0:25)

Hi, everybody.

Rob Jackson (0:25)

Dick Vitale.

Elijah Jackson (0:26)

Hey, make sure you listen, man. The Locked On Blue Devils with JJ Jackson. He's awesome, baby.

SPEAKER_3 (0:39)

You are Locked On Blue Devils, your daily podcast on the Duke Blue Devils, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.

Rob Jackson (0:49)

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Locked On Blue Devils Podcast reaction show.

My name is Rob Jackson. I am clearly not the great host of this podcast, JJ Jackson. You may know that in addition to hosting the daily Locked On Blue Devils podcast, he's also a play by play announcer on television and the radio. And tonight he could literally not be in two places at once. Man, I'm excited that he asks me to be here with you. This is our seventh reaction show of the season, which absolutely blows me away because that means it's also the seventh game of the season for our Duke Blue Devils when we continue or when we count our exhibition games. Tonight, I want to say thank you for being here with us. It's Friday night, November 13th on the Locked On Blue Devils Podcast, your one stop shop where JJ discusses everything going on inside the life of Duke Athletics.

I am really excited to introduce to you our guest for this evening, for this reaction show, the one and only Elijah Jackson. You may recognize him, past guest of the show. He's also JJ's little brother. Welcome Elijah.

Elijah Jackson (2:05)

Hey, how are we doing? Long time listener for some caller.

Excited to be here. Go Devils.

Rob Jackson (2:12)

Go Blue Devils for sure. Well, tonight we had the opportunity to watch our Blue Devils back in action. We were looking for something very different than we saw the last time they were on the court on Tuesday night against Michigan State. That was a punch in the nose that we haven't seen going all the way back to the Tennessee game about three years ago in the playoffs. Don't want to relive those memories.

But coming into tonight, as I shared at the outset, was kind of one of those games that was almost no upside for Duke. I mean, we're sitting in a place where if Duke wins big, they won by 43, almost covered the incredible spread of 44 and a half points. But they went by 43, but we expected it. But if they had lost or not won the way we expected, oh my goodness, Katie, bar the door, we would have been in trouble. Just overall, 43 point victory.

Eli, did you get what you were expecting? What are you thinking?

Elijah Jackson (3:17)

Yeah, I think coming off a game or you lose to Michigan State, it's almost a lose-lose for Duke where there's not a ton of upside, like you're saying, you want to come in and handle your business. And that's exactly what they did. And I think you learn a lot about a team, just based off how they handle a game like this, they come in kind of flat.

There's so much hype coming into the year and they lose that first game against a kind of blue blood like Michigan State. And you're kind of looking at, all right, how are we going to respond? And this is exactly what you want to see, is we're going to handle our business against a team that we should handle our business against. And they really did that.

Rob Jackson (4:10)

So they really did. So credit to the team. Granted, they weren't playing Michigan State tonight.

They were playing a team that on paper, this is a team that if we rank the 350 D1 teams in the country, they're way down towards the bottom. They're 2 and 2 They're 2 victories so far this season over or over division 3 teams. But they got out on the court. They bounced the ball. They shot the ball. They are a division 1 team. And so Duke had the opportunity for this get right game to get in there and reestablish. This is who we are and this is what we want to do. It was interesting to me that at halftime when Coach Scheyer was interviewed, it was an extremely brief, brief interview. And the reporter asked, you know, how are you feeling about what you're seeing? And his response, and this is just a paraphrase, because I won't be able to quote it directly, but his response was basically like, I expected more.