Six Blue Devils Score in Double Figures as No. 2 Duke Routs SIU Edwardsville 90-47

Three nights after a loss in Chicago, Duke did not need a statement win. It needed a clean one. The Blue Devils got exactly that on Friday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium, choking off SIU Edwardsville from the opening minutes and cruising to a 90-47 win in the first meeting ever between the programs.

Six Blue Devils scored in double figures, and nobody scored more than 13. Patrick Ngongba II led the way with 13 points, nine rebounds, four assists and five blocks in 21 minutes. Dame Sarr and Caleb Foster added 12 apiece, and Cayden Boozer, Sebastian Wilkins and Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje each finished with 11. Boozer grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds for a double-double, per the team's official X account.

No. 2 Duke improved to 3-1. SIUE fell to 2-3 after its third straight road game in a week. The box score (opens in a new tab) reads like a scouting report on what happens when an Ohio Valley Conference team runs into a defense this long: 30.4 percent shooting, 3 of 22 from three, 16 turnovers and just four assists.

The Hangover That Never Came

The obvious question coming in was how Duke would respond to Tuesday's Champions Classic. No. 5 Michigan State beat the Blue Devils 79-73 at United Center, and Jeremy Fears Jr. ran the show with 18 points and 11 assists.

There was no slump. Sarr scored on a layup 29 seconds in, Jordan Pickett answered with a jumper to tie it at 2, and that was the last time SIUE had any claim to an even game. Duke never trailed.

The Cougars hung around for a few minutes. Gestin Liberis and Dehrio McCaskill each split a pair of free throws, and when Dehrio McCaskill's make cut it to 9-4 with 14:31 left in the half, SIUE was still within shouting distance.

Then Foster happened.

Foster's Flurry Breaks It Open

Foster came off the bench and hit three 3-pointers in a span of a little over five minutes. The first came at 13:44 off a Wilkins feed. The second came at 10:52 off a Sarr assist. The third, at 8:37, came off a kick-out from Ngongba, of all people, and it pushed the lead to 25-6.

In between, Wilkins dunked, Ngongba finished a layup off a Boozer pass, and Cameron Williams threw one down off a Ngongba dish. Duke went on a 16-2 run from the 14:31 mark to the 8:37 mark, and SIUE went more than four and a half minutes without a point after Pickett's layup at 11:27. SIUE also lost two first-half possessions to shot clock violations.

Foster finished with 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting and 3 of 5 from three in 18 minutes. For a team that went 4 of 22 from deep in the opener against Army, a reliable bench shooter is not a small thing.

The second wave came late in the half, and it belonged to Boumtje Boumtje, who dunked off a Sarr pass at 4:01, dunked again at 3:31 and then stepped out and drained a three off a Drew Scharnowski assist at 2:47. That was seven points in 74 seconds. Scharnowski set up Williams for another three at 1:10, Boozer made two free throws, and Duke led 43-15 with 46 seconds left.

SIUE did close the half with a little life. Pickett converted a three-point play at 0:44, and David Wilson dunked off a Dehrio McCaskill feed with five seconds left to make it 43-20 at the break. SIUE made eight field goals in the first half and none of them came from beyond the arc.

Ngongba Owned the Paint

Ngongba's line was quieter than the career-high 28 against Coastal Carolina last week, recapped here. It might have been more impressive. Three of the five blocks came in the first half, all on Dehrio McCaskill layup attempts, and the message landed. Dehrio McCaskill finished 1 of 9 from the field, and SIUE shot 30.4 percent for the night.

Ngongba also set the tone after halftime, dunking off a Boozer feed at 18:39, scoring a layup at 17:49 and then feeding Sarr for a three at 17:11. That 7-0 burst made it 50-22 and ended any hope of a comeback before the second half was three minutes old. Ngongba went 4 of 6 from the field and 5 of 6 at the line, and the four assists matched Boozer for the team lead.

Boozer was the other steadying presence, posting 11 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and a steal while going 4 of 4 at the line. Three turnovers were the only real smudge on Boozer's night.

Wilkins Lives at the Line

The second half was mostly about finishing the job, and Wilkins handled a lot of that from the free throw line. Wilkins went just 1 of 5 from the field but made 9 of 10 free throws, including six straight between 13:54 and 12:31. The last two of those made it 65-34, a 31-point lead with more than 12 minutes to play. Wilkins added six rebounds, two assists and three steals in 15 minutes.

SIUE's best stretch came early in that half. Jayden Riley hit a three at 16:14, then set up Harrison Alexander and Darrion Baker for back-to-back threes at 13:41 and 13:06. Those were the only three 3-pointers SIUE made all night, and Riley was responsible for every one of them as a shooter or a passer. Riley had three of SIUE's four assists. Duke answered each time. It was 79-43 with 5:53 left, 88-45 with 1:53 left and 43 at the final horn, a half point beyond the 42.5-point line CBS Sports listed before tip.

Gianni Cobb led SIUE with nine points on 3-of-8 shooting, and Pickett added eight but went 0 of 5 from three. Brennan Miller was the Cougars' most active player, logging 29 minutes with four points, nine rebounds, three steals and three blocks. Kain McCaskill went 0 of 7, including 0 of 5 from three, in six minutes off the bench.

The Numbers Behind the Rout

The margin was a product of possessions, not just talent. Duke won the glass 50-30, assisted on 19 of its 30 field goals and committed only nine turnovers to SIUE's 16. The Blue Devils had 11 steals and eight blocks, and they got 40 points from their bench to SIUE's 21.

Duke's own shooting was fine, not spectacular. The Blue Devils made 45.5 percent from the field and 9 of 29 from three, and they went 21 of 29 at the line. John Blackwell had a rough night, going 1 of 7 from the field and 1 of 6 from deep for three points in 22 minutes. Williams went 2 of 4 from three with three blocks in 14 minutes, while Scharnowski chipped in two points, two assists and two steals, and Maxime Meyer and Jacob Theodosiou scored in the second half as Jon Scheyer went deep into the bench. Eleven Blue Devils scored.

What It Means

For Duke, the takeaway is depth. Six double-figure scorers and a top scorer with just 13 is a team that can win when its stars are quiet, and the Blue Devils have now done it in different ways in all three wins. The opener against Army, recapped here, was a grind with cold shooting. Coastal Carolina was a track meet. This one was a defensive clinic.

The schedule is about to stop being polite. No. 3 Illinois comes to Cameron on Tuesday, Nov. 17, the first half of a home-and-home series, and Duke faces Washington State in the Acrisure Series on Nov. 21. After the Michigan State loss, Illinois is the next real chance for this group to show it belongs in the same sentence as the nation's best.

For SIUE, the week was brutal by design. The Cougars lost at Lipscomb by one point last Saturday, got run off the floor at Missouri on Monday and drew the No. 2 team in the country on Friday. Brian Barone's team is a long way from OVC play, and the next stop, at North Dakota on Monday, Nov. 16, is a far more realistic measuring stick. Miller's activity is worth building around. The offense, with four assists and three made threes, has work to do.

The Takeaway

Duke did not need to prove anything against SIUE, and it did not try to. It defended, rebounded, shared the ball and let six different players eat. After the Champions Classic loss, that is the right kind of boring. The real exam comes Tuesday night.

Sources: CBS Sports box score and play-by-play; Duke Athletics and @DukeMBB; SIUE Athletics; Illinois Athletics. More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Patrick Ngongba II in Duke's white home uniform against Coastal Carolina at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Nov. 5, 2026 (file photo). Photo Credit: Duke Athletics.