One thing we learned about Duke, Kentucky, Michigan State and Kansas after heavyweight Champions Classic

One real thing we gleaned about Duke, Michigan State, Kentucky and Kansas after a loaded Champions Classic.

CHICAGO — Michigan State’s three-point woes are a story of the season. But it’s a story, not the story.

Tuesday’s Champions Classic showcased 20 minutes of the underbelly of a Michigan State offense gone astray. It also showcased 20 minutes of what a potential turnaround could look like.

Michigan State attempted 31 shots in a brick-laden first half. Just six came at the rim. Four layups. Two dunks. That’s it.

For the Spartans to reach maximum efficiency offensively, that just has to change. Michigan State had the fewest buckets at the rim of any Big Ten team last year, but it made up for it with elite efficiency on jump shooting.

Sure, Michigan State fell 74-65 to Duke. Sure, there’s real trepidation throughout East Lansing after a frustrating 1-2 start (1-3 if you include the charity exhibition that didn’t feel like an exhibition loss to Tennessee).

But over the final 20 minutes, Michigan State showed signs of a mental pivot. It takes patience to work the ball inside. It takes energy to drive the basketball. Even just for a half, Michigan State started to show a little bit of it. The ball started to get where it needed to go. 14 of Michigan State’s 32 shots came at the rim, and a 45-point eruption ensued. Tyson Walker’s flurry came a little late, but it showed up nonetheless. But it’s Malik Hall and Jaden Akins who have to provide the rim pressure while AJ Hoggard gets himself out of one of the worst three-game slumps of his career.

Maybe it was an aberration. Maybe it was the start of something new. We’ll find out soon enough.

AJ Hoggard walked into the postgame locker room and owned it. He vowed to be better. Tom Izzo thinks these Spartans still have a shot to live up to the lofty preseason goals.

“I think we got a damn good team,” Izzo said matter-of-factly in his postgame press conference. “I really do. We haven't played very good. We haven't played very good. We're going to play good.”

It can’t happen without the drives.

Here's what we learned from Tuesday's Champions Classic, which also saw Kansas beat Kentucky, 89-84.

Duke shows one of its six recipes

Duke coach Jon Scheyer says the NBA can wait. The projections. The mock drafts. The lottery conversations. All of it can wait. He wants his talented Duke club to live in the moment and enjoy the big moments in a long, grueling journey to March.

And yet, Duke showed a little of why it might have an elite ceiling in the Big Dance.

Duke has championship aspirations. It needs six wins using six different ways.

Tuesday was the Caleb Foster game.

That proof of concept for the five-star freshman can be a huge building block both right now in mid-November and again in that Round of 32 war Duke expects to be in.

Eighteen points. 16 in the second half. Four enormous treys.

“What Caleb did tonight, he won us the game,” Scheyer said, before joking with Duke big men Ryan Young and Kyle Filipowski that they shouldn’t feel bad and that they did some “OK things too.”

That’s the recipe that gives Duke such an enormous ceiling.

Duke can win with the Filipowski game. We’ve already seen a Tyrese Proctor game in March. Duke can win with a Jeremy Roach game. Duke can win with a Foster game. Jared McCain and Mark Mitchell can single-handedly turn a game.

Duke has a long way to go, but man, the championship mettle is starting to form because of its versatility and depth. A frontline combination of Filipowski, Mitchell, Ryan Young and Sean Stewart is the envy of college basketball elites. But this backcourt is flat-out nasty. Roach, Proctor, McCain and Foster probably can’t all play together, but the quartet changes Duke’s ceiling in a major way.

You need six different ways to win six different games. Duke has it.

“These guys don't get this time back,” Scheyer said. “If you throw yourself into winning, good things will happen. Every high school player in the country should follow what he's done the last two games because it's what it's all about, the attitude, the mindset, the work, he's crushed it.”

Dajuan Harris and the button that has to be tapped

Dajuan Harris circled the paint on Kansas’ first possession of the second half and pirouetted into a wide-open righty layup. Vintage Steve Nash stuff. Except, it spun out.

Bill Self’s knuckles tightened like a vice grip around his page of freshly printed halftime stats. He slammed ‘em in between his chair on the sideline.

Missed opportunity. Potentially a big one.

Boy, Harris made up for it. Kentucky dared the veteran point guard to beat it, and Harris did just that with 15 of his career-high 23 points in the second half of the Jayhawks’ come-from-behind, 89-84 win over Kentucky. Oh, and don’t forget about the seven assists and numerous deflections.

Harris was not perfect Tuesday, but he was more than good enough. When Kentucky’s speedy, young guards stole the show in the first half, it was the under-control veteran who took over in winning time.

“That was big-boy basketball,” Harris said. “That's always a fight. A dogfight every time we play them. But they, I think they wanted me to beat them, they left me open, and then I just had to step up and make the shot.”

The oft-percolating question throughout the preseason was, “Can Kansas lose the math but win the game?” We got an answer.

Kentucky shot 38 3-pointers. KU took 18. Kentucky outscored Kansas by 18 points from beyond the arc. Kansas only won the free throw battle by five points (27-22).

It made up for the other 18 points at the rim. Kansas scored 40 points at the rim. Kentucky managed just 22.

But Harris’ five treys proved invaluable. And that early biffed layup didn’t come back to haunt KU.

“Juan, he was the best player in the game down the stretch without question,” Self said.

Nick Timberlake is scuffling. Elmarko Jackson’s offense comes and goes because of an iffy jumper. Kansas’ bench isn’t giving it much (just four points on Tuesday). Dickinson, Kevin McCullar and KJ Adams can only do so much. Harris may have to tap that scorer button a few more times in 2023-24.

Kentucky's fight to stay 'random'

A word slipped out of John Calipari’s mouth in the postgame press conference that could be easy to ignore.

“Random.”

That’s how Kentucky wants to play in 2023-24. Random is hard to scout and even harder to guard. There’s freedom in randomness. There’s chaos in randomness.

We saw both in Kentucky’s five-point loss to No. 1 Kansas.

Kentucky’s barrage in the first half had Kansas scrambling. The tempo and pace Kentucky’s guards were able to bring to the table gave Kansas real, genuine fits. Rob Dillingham’s 16-point heater was special stuff. Kentucky beat Kansas for loose balls. It looked young, springy and unbothered. Kentucky hit nine 3-pointers in the first half. It attempted more against Kansas (38) than any game last year.

This is new and different. But Kentucky is far from a finished product.

Kentucky needs its healthy big men to reach its ceiling. If Kentucky runs into Kansas again in March, Aaron Bradshaw, Zvonimir Ivisic and/or Ugonna Onyenso could help the Jayhawks shoot worse than 20-for-30 on layups and dunks.

But the toothpaste is out of the tube. Good luck shoving it back. The randomness Kentucky is able to bring to the table is real and can work. This young team can’t turn it over on back-to-back possessions after building a six-point lead with five minutes to go. This young team has to find a way to eliminate the silly fouls from its arsenal. This young team has to find the right balance between structure and chaos.

This young team can also be really, really good.

Kentucky gave Kansas a war with DJ Wagner and Justin Edwards combining to shoot just 1-for-18 from the field and Reeves missing 14 of his 17 (!) 3-pointers. Dillingham, Reed Sheppard and Adou Thiero were fabulous. Good nights are coming for Wagner and Edwards on the occasions when Sheppard, Dillingham or Thiero don’t have it. That’s basketball. It's random.

Kentucky can’t change its ways even when its big men are healthy.

“We thought that they would spread us and drive us and they spread us and drove us,” KU coach Bill Self said. “We got to get better at guarding the ball or it won't always end up very good. I like their team. To me they're hard to guard with Tre playing the 5. They're hard to guard if he's playing the 5. But when they get Bradshaw back or their other guys, other bigs, that's going to be a hard team to deal with. Cal's got a really good bunch.”

The bet on randomness worked. Calipari might have to double down on it.