As Duke reaches midway point of ACC play, have Blue Devils turned the corner?

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Luke Kennard was talking about how Duke is becoming the team it wants to be when the Blue Devils guard was asked to elaborate, leading to a revelation of sorts.

“We’re healthy,” Kennard said. “Everybody is able to play — almost, pretty much. We’ve battled through so much: injuries, just different things. We’ve battled through a lot. To be healthy, to be almost 100 percent and to have all the freshmen back now, it’s good. Everybody’s there, everybody’s all in and everybody’s tough and together.”

Almost. Pretty much. Not quite 100 percent just yet.

No, Duke isn’t exactly a finished product. There’s the back injury that has sidelined Chase Jeter for nearly three weeks. And there’s that other not-so-insignificant back problem that has shelved Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski since early January.

That doesn’t mean Coach K has been a non-factor — ESPN reported last week that he banned players from the locker room and forbid them from wearing team apparel — but rather that Kennard may have been on to something when the sophomore said the Blue Devils were starting to become what they want to be.

If that suggests Duke may have turned a corner in its last two games, so be it. A two-point win at Wake Forest after trailing by 10 with four minutes left was crucial if only to avoid the alternative, especially in light of Coach K’s edict. But that road triumph, coupled with a victory at No. 20 Notre Dame a little more than 50 hours later, may be just what the Blue Devils need to get things pointed in the right direction, especially with the seemingly imminent return of its head coach.

“After a big comeback game like we just had, I thought we showed maturity in coming out (Monday) and playing hard from the start,” Grayson Allen said. “I think that was something that was a key for us coming in. We tend to relax after getting a big win like we did, and I thought we came out firing and really focused on our defense.”

Duke is 4-3 without Krzyzewski. Two of those losses, in back-to-back trips to Florida State and Louisville, were forgivable, with acting head coach Jeff Capel noting that he saw plenty of progress in those defeats.

But it was a blown double-digit lead to NC State — the Wolfpack’s first win in Durham in 22 years — that signaled trouble, prompting the confab with Coach K.

“We were going through some hard things,” Capel said, adding that the team-building that is normally reserved for nonconference play had bled into the grind of the ACC season as the roster still rounded into form.

“We didn’t have our whole team,” he continued. “Hopefully we’re through the storm and we can start seeing daylight and continue to improve. We’ve really gotten better.”

Wake Forest and Notre Dame bore witness to that. If the first half of ACC play could be considered bottoming-out for the nation’s preseason No. 1 team, then Duke can probably take its four-way tie for sixth place in the league (at 5-4) and not look back.

The early-season injuries to freshmen Harry Giles, Jayson Tatum and Marques Bolden are behind the Blue Devils, as is Amile Jefferson’s recent foot trouble. The next three games are at home, including next Thursday’s tilt with first-place rival North Carolina. The never-ending drama following Allen likely won’t die anytime soon, but that’s the price of self-inflicted wounds at a place like Duke — and those wounds tend to heal faster with 21-point nights like Monday’s at Notre Dame.

“We’ve become tougher, more together,” Capel said. “Understanding how much we need each other, understanding how hard we have to play every possession. That’s difficult for young guys because it’s not their habit, and it becomes less of a habit when you’re not able to practice, which we couldn’t for a really long time. So we’ve had to learn these things in the fire, which is the ACC, but the last two games on the road, in these hostile atmospheres, we’ve done a really good job and now we have to build on it.”