It’s a J.J. It’s a Grayson. No, it’s Alex O’Connell. The Superman for the Duke basketball team on Saturday night at Syracuse — well, second in superhero status to freshman R.J. Barrett, who dropped his typical 30 points to go along with seven assists and five boards — drew his first start of the season and put on the best performance of his career.
In other words, it was O’Connell who allowed Duke fans to stop dreading a potential two-game losing skid and momentarily stop thinking about the absence of freshman Zion Williamson — the leading candidate to be Naismith National Player of the Year and the No.