Duke has had a banner year to date, and a big part of why it’s been so great is the defense. And there’s a lot to that. Caleb Foster and Isaiah Evans have vastly improved as defenders. Pat Ngongba is seriously underrated as a defender. And of course, Maliq Brown is a brilliant defender who can come in and just knock a game off its foundation. But there is no one at Duke, and possibly not in college basketball, who defends quite like Dame Sarr.
Sarr’s on-ball pressure is the best we’ve seen at Duke since Tre Jones and possibly since Billy King, and King wasn’t always turned loose on the ball handler like Sarr is.
Well, we forgot one part of the recipe: his individual desire to be a superb defender. There are plenty of guys with his skill set who aren’t willing to be great defenders. Sarr is willing.
Put all that together, and you get a guy who can completely jam the offense at the point of attack. And that explains a lot of Duke’s defensive success.
