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Maliq Brown admits Duke thought Siena 'was going to be a cakewalk'

IMG_0985by: Griffin McVeigh03/19/26griffin_mcveigh

Nobody expected Duke to be fighting for their NCAA Tournament lives on Thursday. While recent years have brought a pair of 16-seed upsets over a No. 1, the Blue Devils were not thought to be in danger against Siena. Not just from the outside either. Apparently, people inside the Duke locker room had the same mentality.

Maliq Brown spoke with CBS reporter Tracy Wolfson heading into the second half. Duke finds itself down double-digits, rare air for teams with a one next to their name. Brown admitted they thought Siena “was going to be a cakewalk” heading into the game. Now, Duke has to find a way to respond in the final 20 minutes to avoid being on the wrong side of history.

“First game, I feel like a lot of us were nervous,” Brown said. “We got punched first, so we’ve just got to respond back going into the second half… We weren’t playing our basketball. We thought it was going to be a cakewalk going into this game. So, now we know what it is and we’ve got to respond the way we usually do.”

Duke has blown teams out all season, no matter who has been in and out of the lineup. Losing Caleb Foster and Patrick Ngongba certainly hurts on the offensive end, with the duo averaging just over 19 points per game. But Jon Scheyer has built this group around playing great on the defensive end. Assuming Duke would find a way to run away with this one would be easy.

Instead, Siena has done a great job of putting up 43 points at halftime. Not what we are used to seeing from Duke, let alone when facing inferior competition.

There is still plenty of time for Duke to regain its momentum, even if the deficit is quite large at the moment. The Boozer brothers will step into the spotlight, needing to get more production out of them. Getting someone like Isaiah Evans certainly would help too. At this point, Scheyer will take anybody.

Otherwise, Siena is going to pull off one of the all-time upsets. Brown will likely hear his quote to Wolfson for the rest of time, assuming a Duke loss.

Waiting on the other side of this game is TCU, who beat Ohio State to start Thursday’s action. You have to imagine nobody will be overlooking the Horned Frogs on Saturday, no matter who is on the opposite side of the court.