Here’s what they’re saying about Kyrie Irving after he led Duke with 14 points in an NCAA win over Hampton.<\/p>\n
“I know he didn’t play much, but the little that he did play, you could tell he was very explosive, a good scorer. I think that now that Duke has him back, it’ll make it easier for them to make a farther run in the tournament.” – Hampton guard Brandon Tunnell said.<\/p>\n
“Less than five minutes into the first half Friday, Kyrie Irving came into the game for Duke and changed the landscape of the NCAA tournament entirely.” – Raleigh News & Observer writer Luke Decock.<\/p>\n
“Flashes of brilliance. That’s what we saw from Kyrie Irving against Hampton University in his first game back since injuring his right toe on December 4. And, since his return to the Duke Blue Devils’ lineup was uncertain for much of the season, the key question now will be how will Mike Krzyzewski utilizes him as the Blue Devils advance in the NCAA Tournament.” – former coach and ESPN contributor Fran Fraschilla.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re even more dangerous. We\u2019ve just added a player as talented as him [who] can score the ball, and it gives us another weapon.\u2019\u2019 – Duke’s Nolan Smith.<\/p>\n
\u201cKyrie helps our team. We are a really good team. And now we\u2019ll just have to learn how to play with him again. But he\u2019s easy to play with, and it won\u2019t be too hard.\u2019\u2019 – Duke’s Kyle Singler.<\/p>\n
“Before this game, it wasn\u2019t exactly clear how Irving would click with Duke\u2019s stars, and the Blue Devils\u2019 blowout didn\u2019t really answer that question. Irving shared the floor with Nolan Smith, the ACC\u2019s player of the year, for only a handful of possessions in the first half, and his post targets most of the afternoon were Ryan Kelly and Josh Hairston rather than Mason and Miles Plumlee, the starting duo. Irving\u2019s team-high 14 points were deceptive in this way. He didn\u2019t log a field goal until the Blue Devils had already built a 71-39 lead, and Duke\u2019s matchup with Michigan, itself a blowout winner, will be a better indication of Irving\u2019s newfound impact.” – Ben Cohen, Wall Street Journal writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here’s what they’re saying about Kyrie Irving after he led Duke with 14 points in an NCAA win over Hampton. “I know he didn’t play…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,79,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-duke-blue-devils","category-featured-stories","category-uncategorized","wpcat-82-id","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1388,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}