How Duke toughed out a win over Virginia — and improved NCAA hopes
To earn a win that was a long, long, long time coming, Duke displayed the mental and physical toughness it lacked for so long this season.
To subdue No. 7 Virginia 66-65 at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday night, the Blue Devils had to answer any of the tiniest Cavalier scoring runs with ones of their own.
Check that off the to-do list — Virginia never led by more than five points.
Duke had to force the slow-paced Cavaliers into empty possessions, not easy against a team that’s among the nation’s best at 3-point shooting (40%, No. 6 nationally) and one of the best at not turning the ball over (9.5 turnovers per game, No. 3 nationally).
The Blue Devils accomplished those things well enough, too. Even though Virginia hit 5 of 11 of its 3-pointers (45.5%), the Cavaliers turned the ball over 13 times. Duke’s seven steals, combined with a pair of Virginia shot-clock violations, made the difference.
Virginia didn’t score a point after Jay Huff hit two free throws with 3:09 to play. The Cavaliers’ final field goal came with 3:48 left.
They had five shots to take the lead in the final 1:36 and missed them all.
“There’s a lot of communication,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “You know, for our young team, they had to communicate a lot tonight. And they made really outstanding decisions on the defensive end of the court.”
All that added up to a big mission accomplished.
Duke had yet to beat a ranked team this season. It had only one win that qualified as Quadrant 1 using the NET ratings system the NCAA tournament selection committee utilizes to select at-large teams.
Now Duke (10-8, 8-6 ACC), which moved up to No. 55 in the NET on Sunday, has a signature win to get the committee’s attention.
For a team that dropped below .500 for the first time since 1999 with a 93-89 loss to Notre Dame just 11 days earlier, finishing off Virginia was huge.
Duke whipped N.C. State 69-53 and Wake Forest 84-60 in the two games prior to Saturday’s matchup with Virginia. Those wins were important to get the Blue Devils going, but beating Virginia puts them in a different light.
Duke’s two Quadrant 1 wins give them six against the top two quadrants. That’s still not enough to make the tournament, but there’s time to build on that.
Syracuse (13-6, 7-5 ACC) comes to Cameron Indoor Stadium on Monday, fresh off erasing a 20-point, second-half deficit Saturday to beat Notre Dame 75-67. That moved the Orange up to No. 46 in the NET.
Louisville is after that on Duke’s schedule, a home game on Saturday. The Cardinals plummeted 21 places, to No 53 after losing 99-54 at North Carolina on Saturday.
Both of those games will be Quadrant 2 opportunities for Duke, since neither is in the NET top 30.
Road games at Georgia Tech (No. 51 in NET) and North Carolina (No. 33 in NET) the following week to close out the season project as Quadrant 1 games for Duke, as both of those teams are in the NET’s top 75.
Duke could use wins in all of those games, of course. But even three of four would help.
The way the Blue Devils played against Virginia, 3-1 or 4-0 in the final four games before the ACC tournament appears far more possible than it did just two weeks ago.
When Duke lost three consecutive games earlier this month, including a disheartening 77-75 loss at lowly Miami, the Blue Devils appeared lost. Too often, even Krzyzewski said, players weren’t able to handle the physicality of ACC play.
That wasn’t the case in the Virginia game, which saw Duke’s Wendell Moore stunned on two occasions with blows to the head, one of his own doing when he slammed into the 7-foot-1, 243-pound Huff.
Reserve Henry Coleman took an elbow to the chin under the basket. A Virginia player had his cheek cut and a bloody wound opened when Moore’s hand caught him below the eye on a drive to the basket.
There was nothing soft about this game, nor was there anything soft about Duke’s performance.
“We’re together,” Jaemyn Brakefield said. “That’s it. Together. They preach every day. We got to play harder, play together and play smarter, and that’s what we did tonight.”
Brakefield was a big part of the win, producing 11 points, five rebounds and four blocked shots off the bench.
Another freshman forward, Coleman played only five minutes but scored four points on a pair of second-half rebound baskets. He also blocked a shot.
Senior reserve guard Jordan Goldwire had four steals and four assists to go with his four points.
They were important contributors along with Duke’s main stars — like Hurt, who scored 22 points, or Jeremy Roach, who tallied 12 points.
They all played roles in Duke getting its biggest win of the season and maybe, just maybe, showing the Blue Devils can be a factor in March after all.
This story was originally published February 20, 2021 at 11:57 PM.