Tag Archives: Tre Jones

Duke Basketball

Tre Jones, One of Four Finalist for National DPOY

ATLANTA, Ga. – Duke sophomore guard Tre Jones has been named one of four finalists for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Award, presented annually by the Atlanta Tipoff Club.

The finalists include Jones, Marcus Garrett (Kansas), Ashton Hagans (Kentucky) and Mark Vital (Baylor) and were chosen by the Atlanta Tipoff Club's board of selectors, comprised of leading journalists from around the country, who based their selections on outstanding on-court defensive performances during the 2019-20 regular college basketball season.

The winner is scheduled to be announced on April 1 and honored with a ceremony at a later date.

Named both the ACC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, and an Associated Press All-American, Jones was the floor general for the Blue Devils, who finished 25-6 and 15-5 in the ACC. The sophomore team captain, who is also a finalist for the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award and the John R. Wooden Award, ranked sixth in the ACC in scoring (16.2), second in assists (6.4), fourth in assist/turnover ratio (+2.4), sixth in steals (1.8) and 11th in field goal percentage (.423). He was the only player ranked in the league's top 11 in each of those categories.

"Each of these finalists enjoyed an incredible season, and all of them deserve to be a Naismith Defensive Player of the Year finalist," said Eric Oberman, executive director of the Atlanta Tipoff Club. "Their tenacity embodies the spirit of this award, and although we won't see them in postseason play, we believe it is important to still honor their accomplishments."

No program in college basketball has won more Naismith Defensive Player of the Year trophies than Duke's nine, which have been won by six different Blue Devils. Shelden Williams was the last Duke winner, claiming the award in 2005 and 2006.

Duke Basketball

Carey, Jones Named A.P. All Americans

The Associated Press All American Basketball teams were released today.

Duke freshman center Vernon Carey Jr. was a second-team honoree, while sophomore guard Tre Jones picked up third-team honors.

Carey averaged 17.8 points, 8.8 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game while shooting 57.7% from the field. The Southwest Ranches, Florida, was named the ACC Rookie of the Year and claimed First-Team All-ACC honors. Carey was the lone freshman on the AP All-America Team this season.

Jones averaged 16.2 points, 4.2 rebounds, 6.4 assists and 1.8 steals per game this season. The Apple Valley, Minnesota, native was voted the ACC Player of the Year and ACC Defensive Player of the Year while also garnering First-Team All-ACC honors.

Duke Basketball

Tre Jones Finalist For Cousy Award for Top PG


DURHAM, N.C. – The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame today announced Duke sophomore Tre Jones as one of five finalists for the 2020 Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award.

Not only a tenacious on-ball defender and the No. 12 Blue Devils’ on-court leader but Jones has also emerged as one of the top overall players in college basketball. He is the nation’s only player averaging better than 16.0 points (16.1), 6.0 assists (6.5), 1.5 steals (1.7), a .430 field goal percentage (.433) and a 2.0 assist/turnover ratio (+2.3). The Apple Valley, Minn., native also remains the only player ranked in the ACC’s top 10 in each of those categories.

Jones has come on strong in the latter half this season, averaging 17.7 points over his last 15 games, including his 28-point effort and late-game heroics to beat North Carolina in overtime. Jones’ 362 career assists are the most among active power conference sophomores, while his +2.87 career assist/turnover ratio would stand as a Duke record.

A three-time ACC Player of the Week, Jones is the only player in the conference to be named a finalist for the Cousy Award. He is also a semifinalist for the Naismith Men’s Defensive Player of the Year Award and was named to the John R. Wooden Award Late Season Top 20.

The five finalists for the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award will be presented to Mr. Cousy and the Hall of Fame’s selection committee this month. The winner of the award will be determined by a combination of fan votes and input from the Basketball Hall of Fame’s selection committee. Naismith Starting Five Fan Voting presented by Dell Technologies will go live Friday, March 6 on hoophallawards.com.

The winner of the 2020 Bob Cousy Award will be presented at The College Basketball Awards presented by Wendy’s in Los Angeles on Friday, April 10.

2020 Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award Finalists

Tre Jones (Duke)

Devon Dotson (Kansas)

Markus Howard (Marquette)

Payton Pritchard (Oregon)

Malachi Flynn (San Diego State)


Duke Basketball

Duke Must Be More Than Jones and Carey

As a Tre Jones last-second shot bounced off the rim the Duke Blue Devils lost their second consecutive game and their third in the last four outings. A 52-50 loss to Virginia, a team that should have been ranked due to their play of late is not the end of the world, but considering just a play or two would have altered the outcome leaves one feeling empty.

The Blue Devils had their opportunities against Virginia, but a troubling trend continued in the setback. A glance at the box score shows that the team past Tre Jones and Vernon Carey Jr. were a combined 6 of 34 from the field on offense.

To make matters worse, the Blue Devils had an alarmingly paltry four total assists in the loss. Thankfully, Duke has done enough work to warrant a double-bye in the fast-approaching ACC Tournament, but there is plenty of concern with how Duke closes out the regular season against crosstown rivals N.C. State and North Carolina.

Not that long ago, fans and the staff had to feel good about their final two games in Cameron, but now many doubt they can end the skid against hungry teams.

N.C. State can punch their NCAA Tournament ticket with a win and the Monday turnaround gives Duke little time to regroup. One game at a time sure, but it was hard not to notice North Carolina's dominating road win at Syracuse as well.

Early in the season, the Blue Devils had several different players stepping up on different nights which helped them to a fine start. As of late, it is as if everybody on the team is deferring to Vernon Carey and Tre Jones to handle the load.

And they cannot will this team to win by themselves.

As good as Carey and Jones can be they are not Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett from a season ago and they cannot win games taking on the big two role as could two of the top three picks in the NBA Draft.

For whatever reason, the rest of the Duke cast is struggling. Perhaps some of the freshmen have hit the so-called wall, but the Blue Devils are not getting much help from their upperclassmen as well.

If Duke hopes to get past this adversity, it will only come from playing team basketball where other players step up. At this point in the season, the Blue Devils expected to develop a third scoring option, but inconsistency is preventing players with the potential to fill the role.

Duke is not relocating the ball quick enough of late to help handle the pressure. And their players are not playing as if they know and trust one another in certain games.

The aforementioned issues allow opponents to double down on Carey and pressure Jones. And when Duke is not sharing the ball where they have had recent outings of four and six assists, well, you are going to keep losing games.

Duke is starting to tumble in the rankings and their hopes for playing in Greensboro in the NCAA's first round took a major hit. But this team should not even be thinking of that. They should try and find a way to get some swag back for it has been missing of late.

The Blue Devils will have had little time to make adjustments before tomorrow's game with N.C. State. But they can hopefully understand they need to find five players who are willing to play winning basketball when on the court.

"I think this is a key period for us (to) find out who we really are," said Duke leader Tre Jones after the loss to Virginia. Duke faithful hope the Blue Devils are more than they have shown of late.

The Duke versus N.C. State game tips at 7:00 on ESPN. The Blue Devils are currently 13-5 in the ACC and 23-6 overall going into the two-game homestand which ends he regular-season.

Duke Basketball

A Dozen Feel-Good Takeaways From Duke’s Win

With the exception of an unfortunate injury to Cassius Stanley as he was warming up, yesterday was a total feel-good day for the Duke Blue Devils.

The Return of Zion Williamson

The former Duke standout has taken the world by storm and is now an attraction wherever he turns up. Williamson had participated in the NBA Rising Star game the night before wowing fans with his play. He went out of his way to make it to Duke in time to catch part of the game and when he entered necks were bending. Williamson was also able to see Mike Buckmire collect a late-game basket and it was clear that tickled him. Williamson went to the Duke locker room after the win and hung out with players but he did not address the media, not wanting to take the focus off the team. He spoke with the aforementioned Cassius Stanley who was not able to play in the locker room.

The Return of Tyus "Stones" Jones

A national champion was in Cameron yesterday. Tyus Jones came back to sit with his mom Debbie who is recovering after a health scare. The two were able to see Tre who is having a banner season for the Blue Devils. Tyus spoke with some in the media and it was clear he was there for his brother He also told me they would be able to spend some time together that evening.

D-E-F-E-N-S-E

It is fair to say that Notre Dame guards Rex Pfluger and T,J, Gibbs will not soon forget the Blue Devils defense on them. They were both held scoreless. The Duke defense was stellar in pushing the Irish off the three-point stripe which is their bread and butter strength. In fact, the Irish were held to a season-low made three's. Duke also scored 19 points off forced Notre Dame turnovers and their thing is ball protection.

Matthew Hurt is Playing his Best Ball of Late

At times this season, Matthew Hurt has struggled to adjust to the physicality of the college game. He has turned a corner of late and his 12 points and 9 rebounds were somewhat lost in a game where so many players had success. There was a play in the first half when Irish star John Moody was guarding Hurt and banging on him hard. Hurt backed him down despite the no calls and connected on a mid-range shot. If Hurt continues to hit the boards as he did yesterday and grows his inside game to go with his three-point shot, we will be talking about him a lot moving forward.

Goldwired

The most pleasant surprise this season is the play of Jordan Goldwire. He flat out shut down Irish guards. His offense is getting better and he was working with Duke assistant Chris Carrawell two hours before the game started. The one play where he was relentless on defense, gained a steal and connected on a drive on the other end was a crowd-pleaser. He will be further tested by a guard-heavy Wolfpack team next.

Big Vern Shows Off

Vernon Carey Jr took over in the first half against the Irish. He took it to John Mooney and showed he was at times unstoppable when he gets intense. Carey has been a difference-maker for Duke this season and he is the best big man in the league. Once Duke took a commanding lead, Carey's numbers dropped off, but he made a definite statement in the game,

Tre Jones

Make no mistake, the keys to the machine are owned by Tre Jones. His play continued to be top-notch on both sides of the ball as his brother and mom looked on. His steady play gives Duke two player of the year candidates. Duke is 33-4 when he scores in double-digits.

Duke Won Their 7th Straight Game

The Blue Devils are playing as well as any team in the nation as they won their seventh consecutive game. Duke is likely to move up in the rankings but a very hungry N.C. State team awaits them next. Duke rolled the Irish and never looked back once that started. The smashing of the Irish was a near-perfect performance.

The Win Puts Duke in 1st Place

The Blue Devils moved into sole possession of 1st place in the ACC with their blowout win over Notre Dame. Louisville stumbled at Clemson earlier in the day and that allowed for Duke to take a half-game lead in the standings.

Quinn Cook Return

The Los Angeles Lakers Quinn Cook was the other part of the 2015 National Champion backcourt to return from the NBA All Star break to take in a game. Always popular, the Crazies could not manage to get him to sit with them. He conversed a bit with mentor Nolan Smith on the bench once the game was in control. Cook had to head out shortly after with big Duke win to get back to business.

Everybody Contributed

We have mentioned some of the players which played well for Duke, but yesterday had a lot of good performances. Javin DeLaurier logged good minutes and he is playing well of late. Alex O'Connell had a team-high 4 steals to go with his 12 points for a super effort. Joey Baker scored 8 points in 14 minutes as well. And Justin Robinson and Mike Buckmire scored in late-game minutes.

Cassius Stanley Will Be Fine

I have no idea how a manager scratched Cassius Stanley's eye in the pre-game warm-ups. I do know he hated missing the game with former players back. As I said in opening this was one of the few negative moments. But the silver lining is he will be ready to go when Duke travels to N.C. State and that is good news and a way to close the feel-good dozen.

Duke Basketball

Q & A With Tre Jones – Post UNC win

You cannot talk about the thrilling Duke overtime win over North Carolina without mentioning Tre Jones -- a lot. I mean, Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, Wendel Moore Jr., and Cassius Stanley all lauded his play in the post-game presser and they did so for good reasons.

Jones was dominant down the stretch doing everything one could ask of the teams leader. His exploits to get Duke into overtime and then help his team pull out the win will live forever in Duke-UNC rivalry lore.

His teammates praised his positive attitude when all hope looked dire before Duke made a miraculous comeback. Tre finished the game with 28 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals, and the W.

Perhaps, his teammate Wendell Moore said it best, “It all started with Tre [Jones]. Tre had that look in his eye. When he had that look, we knew that we could follow him to victory. He led us there today.”

On his last shot of the overtime which he missed -

I missed and Wendell [Moore] pursued it. He got down low and was able to tip it out to Jordan Goldwire and saved the ball to me. I went up with a look and again, Wendell pursued it like he was doing a game and he got that huge basket.

On if he thought the team stole the victory -

No. Not at all. I feel like we earned this one. Things were not always going our way necessarily bt we continued to just ground it out. We never gave up and I think we earned and came out with the win.

What were you thinking when you got the ball in that situation?

Just get the shot off in time.

On the missed free throw... is that something you practice?

It is something I practice, yeah. Me and Scheyer [Jon, Duke Assistant Coach] actually talked about that in practice together. At the time it wasn't really serious but it helped tonight.