Devils at a loss

J.J. Redick scores 41 points, but the Blue Devils' late surge from a 16-point deficit comes up short.

By 3:50 p.m. Saturday, the rows of stands along the baselines and on the floor at the MCI Center were destroyed along with top-ranked Duke's 17-game winning streak.

Blame it on Georgetown.

The Hoyas owned the Blue Devils for most of the nonconference game and led by 16 early in the second half while the Devils struggled to match Georgetown's intensity.

Duke eventually did and roared back from its biggest deficit of the season. But the missing juice turned up too late to keep the Devils from their first loss of the year. Georgetown held off Duke's late surge to win 87-84.

Georgetown coach John Thompson III responded to his team's 12th victory with the understatement of the new year.

"It was a good win," he said.

Duke (17-1), which got 41 points from senior J.J. Redick, nearly pulled it out despite trailing by seven with 28.9 seconds left in the game.

At that point, the Devils were looking to drive the lane and score quickly or stop the clock if the Hoyas fouled them.

Duke scored back-to-back baskets to cut its deficit to three when senior Sean Dockery scored with 24.5 seconds left. Freshman Greg Paulus stole the inbounds pass and scored with 17.6 seconds left.

It was 86-82 after Georgetown forward Brandon Bowman made a free throw for his 23rd point of the game. But, on Duke's ensuing possession, Paulus passed to Dockery for another two points that cut the lead to 86-84 with 7.4 seconds remaining.

Duke fouled Hoyas guard Jonathan Wallace, who finished with 12 points and six assists, to stop the clock. Wallace sank his first free throw but Duke forward Shelden Williams rebounded Wallace's miss on the second.

Paulus, who scored a career-high 14 points with four assists, moved the ball up the court but turned it over, for the fourth time in the game, as time expired.

Redick matched his career high in scoring and jumped two places into ninth on the ACC's all-time scoring list. He has 2,296 career points, just ahead of North Carolina's Phil Ford (2,290) and just behind N.C. State's David Thompson (2,309).

Redick, however, couldn't quite get the Devils over the hump Saturday. He touched the ball just twice in the last three minutes and missed two 3s.

That released the Hoyas faithful into a triple-espresso frenzy. They stormed the court, leaving broken chairs and overmatched security guards in their wake.

The Hoyas, who beat a No. 1 team for the first time since 1985, finally knocked off a top 25 team this year after losing by seven to then-No. 10 Illinois, then-No. 16 West Virginia and then-No. 4 Connecticut.

"[The Hoyas] are superb," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "John and his kids played with all their heart for 30 minutes. I can say we didn't do this or that but I think the story of the game is what they did."

Redick said Duke wanted to disrupt the passing lanes but Georgetown's quickness and precise passing gave the Hoyas not only that important first step on defense, but a lot of open looks under the hoop.

Georgetown assisted on 24 of its 36 baskets and shot 61.5 percent from the floor.

On offense, Duke looked to be playing its usual game early. Redick, who leads the ACC in scoring with 27.2 points per game, dropped in 18 first-half points.

Trouble was Williams, the other half of the touted Blue Devils 1-2 punch, had just two points in the first half and would finish with four. It was the lowest scoring total for Williams since he scored four in Duke's loss to Connecticut in the 2004 Final Four.

"We could not match their intensity for a whole half ... and that doesn't happen very often, then all of a sudden we do J.J. watching," Krzyzewski said.

"J.J. watching" is a specific sport in which the Blue Devils have participated, but not enjoyed, this season. It means Redick is scoring and the rest of the team forgets to keep moving and working.

Reverting to that habit and losing for the first time left the Devils in a poor mood. While praising the Hoyas for their execution, intensity and moxie during a great college basketball game, the Devils questioned their own.

"We held [our enthusiasm] back a lot today," Dockery said. "We deserved to lose."