RALEIGH — The Duke Blue Devils had little trouble in their lone visit to Raleigh Monday evening, smashing the NC State Wolfpack 93-64, as they also claimed the ACC regular season title too.
It was at least a close contest for the first 10 minutes, as the two sides traded baskets back-and-forth, but once Duke started to gain a little traction, the game was all but over.
“I’m really proud of this team,” said Duke coach Jon Scheyer. “To win the ACC outright, 28 wins at this point of the year and just with their professionalism and their approach. They’ve been an absolute joy to coach.”
The Blue Devils dominated virtually every facet of the game: they shot better from beyond the arc (39.3%) than the Wolfpack did from the field (35.4%), outrebounded NC State 43-32, had a 42-28 edge in points in the paint and had more bench points, fast break points and second-chance points.
It was crystal clear that one team is the best in the country, while the other is one that has now lost five of their last six games.
“A game like tonight, obviously you don’t want to lose by 30, but it was a tough task,” said NC State Will Wade. “These guys are in a different weight class than we are.”
And as many could have expected, it was freshman Cameron Boozer who was leading the way for the Blue Devils with 26 points, nine rebounds, four assists and only a single turnover.
“[Boozer] is physical, he plays with force, just a tremendous player, a tremendous talent,” Wade said. “Just with how hard he plays, how physical he plays. I mean, there’s just not a lot you can do with him.”
The Wolfpack did manage to keep the game close early by hitting the Blue Devils with a bit of a curveball.
For pretty much the first time this season, the Wolfpack opted to come out of the gate in zone against Duke, something that Wade said he felt was just a needed change based on how bad the team had been defensively as of late.
“This probably wasn’t a great team to try it against, but, I mean, look, when we went man, we fouled them almost every possession” Wade said. “We’d have fouled everyone out, I think, if we played them in man.”
But after about 10 minutes, the Blue Devils adjusted and from there the Wolfpack just couldn’t find a way to respond.
“We knew we could see some different things tonight,” Scheyer said. “They went zone and I thought we just did a really good job of just handling that. Not right away, but our guys really worked through it.”
After Duke’s adjustments, the game never really got close again, with the Blue Devils jumping out to as much as a 32-point lead and sending the fans at Lenovo Center flooding out of the building before even halfway through the second half.
In fact, the loudest the building got outside of a game-opening dunk by Lubin, was when Maliq Brown missed two free throws late in the game to win the attending fans chicken sandwiches from Chick-fil-A.
That’s just a testament to how much of a machine this Duke squad is.
“I think the fact that we’re built with size, really good versatility and then for us as a coaching staff, we’ve had to adjust and continue to try and help them and put guys in positions where they can grow like crazy throughout the year,” Scheyer said.
“Their pieces and their parts fit,,” Wade said on the Blue Devils. “They’ve got two main parts and then the other pieces fit around the parts.”
And now one test remains for the Blue Devils before the ACC Tournament and that’s a much anticipated rematch with the Tar Heels on Saturday.
“We’re looking forward to it,” Boozer said. “Definitely excited for that game.”
For NC State, like much of how their year has gone, it was a game in which they struggled to make shots and even though there were a few instances of suspect shot selection, the Pack as a whole just struggled to even hit open shots.
As a team, the Wolfpack shot just 24.1% from 3-point range and although Darrion Williams led the way with 17 points, he was just 3 for 11 from deep and 6 for 17 overall.
The second-half of the conference slate couldn’t have gone worse for the Wolfpack, who have now won just a single game since their season-high six-game winning streak.
Since that streak, NC State has gone on to lose five of their last six games, with three of those being by 29-plus points.
With the way the back-half of the season has gone, it’s going to be imperative for NC State to win their final regular season game when they host Stanford on Saturday.
“We’re in one-game seasons from here on out,” Wade said. “The Stanford game is huge for us. I think we’re fine as of now, but we don’t want to lose Saturday. I think it’ll get a lot trickier then.”
