In the first 13 minutes of Saturday’s game, Flagg made just one of his five shots from the field. He missed a few layups out of the gates as Duke fell behind, and he only had four points when he headed to the free-throw line with 6:55 left until halftime.

He scored 24 points in the next 21:29.

Flagg took over games like this in November, notably scoring 26 points against the Kentucky Wildcats and 22 points against Arizona thanks to his second-half command, but he’s done so much more efficiently against conference opponents. He made eight of his last nine attempts on his closing run, getting to the free throw line nine additional times, and he powered through more than a few contested efforts in the paint. Once he found the right lanes, it was curtains, and Boston College couldn’t stop him until he took his own foot off the pedal.

Yes, I’ve written a lot about freshman starters Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach this season, but junior guard Tyrese Proctor being an efficient and confident upperclassman scorer has been critical to Duke’s ability to handle poor starts. The third-year starter from Australia notched a season-high 20 points thanks to a trio of 3-pointers, and he’s made 41.2% of his triples on the season. He’s also the best backcourt defender on the team as his 6-foot-6 frame, lateral speed, and effort helped limit Boston College’s leading scorer Donald Hand Jr. to 12 points.

Proctor doesn’t play the same way as former captain Jeremy Roach, but him sliding into that veteran 3-and-D role has been an underrated throughline for the season.

The Blue Devils trailed seven points in the early part of the first half, got zero points from Knueppel, and only had Maluach on the floor for 17 minutes. All of that sounds like a recipe for an upset, or at least a nail-biter.

Duke scored 88 points to win by 25.

Flagg is a one-man wrecking ball on offense, and he’s been a remarkably consistent one since the holiday break as well, but seven 3-pointers from Proctor and Isaiah Evans helped eradicate any Boston College hopes before the situation truly got out of hand. Scheyer built a roster with seven double-digit scoring threats on any given night. Stop me if you’ve heard me say this before, but the idea that Knueppel and Maluach don’t need to stack points for a good result is absolutely crucial for the home stretch.

Any Duke basketball fans reminiscing on the first 10 games of the season probably experienced some unpleasant flashbacks in the first dozen minutes, but from the inexperienced point of view, it didn’t seem like a run to get particularly concerned about. The Eagles aren’t a good offense, but Boston College looked incredibly focused with its ball movement and incredibly disciplined with its shot selection out of the gates. With plenty of packed arenas and upset hopefuls between now and the end of February, the Blue Devils will probably get plenty familiar with opening flurries.

Like almost every other team on the schedule, once the early adrenaline wore off and the Blue Devils started to bother the Eagles with their length and speed, the home team started making mistakes. It’s like clockwork.

Okay, maybe one single point of bother from the opening run: Chad Venning. The 6-foot-9 St. Bonaventure transfer scored the Eagles’ first six points while exclusively matched against Maluach, and the five-inch height difference looked less important than Venning’s 270-pound frame. Maluach and Flagg are two of the best interior defenders in the nation (even with Maliq Brown out), but neither of them boasts a particularly imposing frame.

Boston College clearly slowed down from there, but Venning still finished with 19 points thanks to a 7/11 game from the field. If Duke won as comprehensively as it did, perhaps there’s nothing to think about it, but it’s one of the first times a forward looked ready for the challenge in the paint.