Duke Lose To Syracuse, Tre Jones Injury, Poor 3-Point Shooting Blamed

The number one ranked college basketball team, Duke Blue Devils, lost to unranked Syracuse Orange 95-91 in overtime Monday night. It was the first time that a top-ranked Duke team lost at home to an unranked opponent; they were 90-0 entering the game on Monday, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

The Blue Devils, who had the No.3 defense in the country going into the game on Monday, were not expected to allow the unranked Orange to score 95 points. The loss was put down to the team losing one of their key players before the match and one during the clash.

Cam Reddish, who is one of their key players, was taken ill a day before the game and was not available to coach Mike Krzyzewski. And to make matters worse, guard Tre Jones suffered a shoulder injury early in the first quarter and failed to return for the rest of the game.

The loss of Jones, who makes valuable contributions in offense and defense, was labeled as the main reason for Duke’s overtime loss to Syracuse. With the guard on the court, for barely six minutes, the Blue Devils raced to a 12-0 start while he also notched four steals.

According to NCAA.com’s Joe Boozell, Jones is the best perimeter defender in the country at the moment and was certain that Syracuse’s Tyus Battle would not have been allowed to score 32 points had he been on court for the entire game.

Coach Krzyzewski revealed after the game that Jones could be out for a while but confirmed the injury was just a shoulder sprain and there was no break.

"The injury to Tre is a shoulder sprain," Duke coach Krzyzewski said, as quoted on CBS Sports. "There's no break. He was in a lot of pain ... he's the toughest kid. Right away, he said 'I don't know if my collarbone is broken,' it was hurting that badly. But it's a sprain."

The Blue Devils coach also commended his team for giving their all in the second-half but admitted that missed shots cost them the win against Syracuse. The No.1 ranked team went 9-for-43 from the three-point range, with Boozell's report claiming most of them were open.

Krzyzewski also admitted his team did not react well to losing Reddish the day before the game and then Jones walking out just six minutes into the first quarter.

“It’s one of those things that happens in life - everything is going great and then right before the game Cam feels sick and then in the game Tre goes down with a shoulder sprain - and I didn’t think we reacted well,” the Duke coach said.

“I thought in the 2nd half we played winning basketball - our guys fought like crazy, our kids put their hearts on the floor in the 2nd half and overtime - there were just some missed shots.”

Their next game is against No.4 ranked Virginia Cavaliers on Saturday.