DURHAM--On Wednesday night, Duke played basketball. Georgia Tech played something else.

Maybe Ron Francis, the Carolina Hurricanes captain who sat behind the Duke bench, recognized it. Tech's guards and forwards moved like skaters, except they made the surface look like a trampoline.

Georgia Tech's game is very fast and goes very high. On Wednesday, it was faster and higher and better than the best Duke could do.

"Georgia Tech played their butts off. They were deserving," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, speaking after Duke's first loss in Cameron Indoor Stadium in 42 games. "We could never match that intensity for the full 40 minutes."

Under coach Paul Hewitt, Tech's game has become a swirl of leaping, shooting, rebounding athletes that revolves around 7-foot-1 center Luke Schenscher.

The Yellow Jackets play ferocious defense and ferocious offense. They don't mind turnovers. They had 15 in the first half and still walked off the court with a 37-29 halftime lead, the first by a visitor in Cameron since Detroit did it in a losing effort back on Nov. 22.

Hewitt shrugged off the lost balls as part of playing hard. He noted that his team's intensity helped force 20 Duke turnovers.

"So that evens up," Hewitt said. "This is the toughest conference in college basketball.

"There are going to be some odd stats, but you know that both teams every night in this conference are going to go at each other hard."

Tech (21-8, 8-7 ACC) doesn't worry about fouling, either. It has a bench full of interchangeable quick, swift players if the need arises. If Wednesday's game had been played on a New York playground, Tech would have won by 20.

There's nothing yellow about the Yellow Jackets.

They came into the toughest venue in college basketball after losing 15 straight to Duke and never blinked.

Duke (24-4, 12-3) started with a 4-0 lead after 45 seconds, a big number in a place where the homecourt advantage seems worth 10 points. Tech's Marvin Lewis answered with a 3-pointer just as the first minute expired. It was a small exchange, but it told the whole story. Tech was not intimidated and it was not going away.

Despite the noise of Cameron Indoor and the knowledge that Duke built the longest winning streak in the country there, the Yellow Jackets did their work with steely purpose. Tech's best athletes, Jarrett Jack, B.J. Elder, Will Bynum and the high flying Isma'il Muhammad barely speak to each on the floor. They don't smile. There's no fist pounding on the chest after a big shot.

Duke came back in the second half.

The Blue Devils drew face-to-face with the Yellow Jackets with the score 56-56 and 7:08 to go. The crowd was on its feet. The Duke bench was up. The weight of history, tradition and Tech's many previous losing exits from Cameron all bore down. But this time Tech drilled them.

"For our guys to maintain and hold on and steady themselves, that says a lot about how far a lot of these players have come," Hewitt said,

Jack, a sophomore guard, said his team knew what to expect and what to do.

"There was no surprises," Jack said. "We knew the crowd would be into it, but we knew if we played together we'd be OK."

The visible emotion was on the other side, especially the Duke bench. Krzyzewski was on the officials early. That "Coach K Court" written on the hardwood isn't just type. The Hall of Fame coach exerts a powerful presence over it.

But when Krzyzewski went too hard after official Ray Natili, official Karl Hess did the second hardest thing in sports after hitting a baseball. He hit K with a T in Cameron.

That really made Krzyzewski mad. It didn't help that Jack drained both technical foul shots, making it 23-16 with 9:18 to go in the first half. During a timeout with 3:28 remaining in the opening half, Duke assistant Johnny Dawkins had to guide an angry Krzyzewski away from another encounter with officials.

By the end of the first half, the usually suited Krzyzewski had his jacket off. He had already had enough of Jackets.

But the Jackets have not had enough of the ACC nor the teams to come in the NCAA Tournament.

Early in the ACC season, they looked like a team of great athletes, but vulnerable to a team of great players.

On Wednesday they met one of the most talented teams in the game. And they performed like great athletes and great players.