Wake Forest knocks off No. 14 Duke, 81-70, in ACC college basketball
No. 14 Duke left two key players back in Durham due to an illness Tuesday night and, coincidence or not, two important factors that have fueled a solid start to the season proved missing as well.
With Dariq Whitehead and Dereck Lively not in uniform, Duke didn’t rebound or defend as well as it has during the season’s first seven weeks.
That allowed Wake Forest to lead the entire game save for 19 early seconds before posting an 81-70 ACC win over the Blue Devils at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
For the first time since the 1982-83 season, Duke (10-3, 1-1 ACC) has three losses before January.
“We missed some shots,” said Jon Scheyer, Duke’s first-year head coach. “I thought that impacted our defense and we were taken aback by it. We can’t be that fragile. We need to be tough minded and defend, which is who we’ve been most of the year.”
The Demon Deacons shot 49.1% against a Duke team that had only allowed its first 12 opponents to shoot 39.1%. Wake Forest grabbed 37 rebounds to Duke’s 29, a flip of the +10 rebounding margin edge the Blue Devils had posted over the season’s first 12 games.
“It’s inexcusable,” Duke center Ryan Young said. “It’s toughness and it’s effort. There’s not much else that goes into rebounding. We take pride in that being a strength of ours. And it was embarrassing that we couldn’t win that tonight. I felt like it was all effort. And they out-toughed us and they came out right from the jump and wanted to more than us.”
With the 7-1 Lively out with a non-COVID illness, the 6-10 Young returned to the starting lineup for the first time since early November. He contributed 10 points and nine rebounds while playing turnover free basketball.
Reserve sophomore guard Jaylen Blakes did all he could to help Duke’s cause, scoring a career-best 17 points after never scoring more than nine points in any game during his career.
But that wasn’t nearly enough as Tyree Appleby scored 18 points for Wake (9-4, 1-1 ACC) while Cam Hildreth added 16. Wake Forest had five players score in double figures as it became just the third team to score 70 points or more against Duke this season.
“Our defense has always started with guarding the ball,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said, “and they just drove us like crazy. They do a good job of moving and spacing and they just got in our paint at will. We need to be solid and guard the ball.”
For Duke, 7-0 freshman Kyle Filipowski entered the game averaging 14 points per game while Jeremy Roach averaged 13. But Filipowski hit only 4 of 14 shots, while missing all six of his 3-pointers, to score nine points while committing five turnovers.
Roach also had nine points on 3 of 7 shooting while committing five turnovers.
Duke shot 44.1% overall, hitting 8 of 27 3-pointers (29.6%).
After leading by nine points at halftime, Wake Forest pushed its lead as large as 15 points when Hildreth scored at 14:44 giving the Deacs a 53-38 lead.
With Wake Forest up 60-46, Duke made a push when Tyrese Proctor and Blakes hit 3-pointers, slicing the Deacs lead to 60-52 with 9:27 left.
Another Blakes 3-pointer, with 8:03 to play, left Wake Forest with a 62-55 lead. But the Blue Devils didn’t shoot well enough to draw any closer.
While Duke was in the midst of missing six consecutive shots, Hildreth hit a running one-hand shot in the lane with 4:50 to play giving Wake Forest a 68-57 lead.
After hitting just 3 of 15 3-pointers in the first half while shooting 38.7% overall, Duke trailed at halftime for just the third time this season.
The Demon Deacons exploited the middle of Duke’s defense, while also hitting four first-half 3-pointers, to lead 39-30.
Duke’s struggles on offense were exemplified by the fact Blakes led the Blue Devils in first-half scoring with seven points. Roach was scoreless.
Wake hit Duke with an early 9-0 run to build an 11-4 lead. Duke fought back to tie the game at 11 on a Jacob Grandison 3-pointer but the Blue Devils could never overtake the Deacs.
Damari Monsanto’s 3-pointer with 7:19 gave Wake Forest a 26-18 lead. Duke pulled within five points on three occasions the remainder of the half but got no closer due to lackluster shooting..
This story was originally published December 20, 2022 at 8:41 PM.