Vernon Carey powers cold-shooting Duke to a win
On a day its jump shots rarely fell, No. 4 Duke fortunately could look inside to Vernon Carey, Jr., for points on Saturday.
The 6-10 freshman tallied a team-high 19 points as the cold-shooting Blue Devils slogged their way to a 75-50 nonconference win over Brown at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Duke (11-1) made just two 3-pointers on 16 attempts and shot 44.1 percent overall. Carey’s play inside, where the smaller Bears from the Ivy League had no one capable of successfully guarding him, proved the difference.
Duke played its second consecutive game without sophomore point guard Tre Jones, who is sidelined with a sprained left foot.
Alex O’Connell added 14 points for Duke, scoring 12 of them in the second half.
Duke’s last game without a made 3-pointer was an 87-75 win at Hawaii on Dec. 30, 1989 and it appeared for a while that streak may end on Saturday.
The Blue Devils missed their first 13 3-pointers. But O’Connell sank one from the left corner in front of Duke’s bench with 6:41 left to extend Duke’s streak of games with a 3-pointer to 1,071. Only UNLV (1,082) and Vanderbilt (1,073) have longer streaks.
O’Connell added Duke’s second 3-pointer a few minutes later.
This story was originally published December 28, 2019 at 1:29 PM.