Perfect storm. NC State downs Duke at PNC Arena. Again.
If it wasn’t clear when Markell Johnson made his first acrobatic layup, it might have been when three Duke players fought over a rebound and lost the ball out of bounds without an N.C. State player anywhere in sight.
By the time Johnson banked in another halfcourt buzzer-beater, his third of the season, it was obvious this was N.C. State’s night.
The Wolfpack poured it and put it all together on Wednesday night in an 88-66 win over No. 6 Duke. A raucous sellout crowd at PNC Arena celebrated the Wolfpack’s fifth home win over the Blue Devils (22-4, 12-3 ACC) in seven tries.
Johnson (career-high 28 points), Devon Daniels (also a career-high 25 points) and D.J. Funderburk (21 points) led the way for the Wolfpack (17-9, 8-7). It was N.C. State’s best game of the season and it played desperate after Sunday’s road loss to Boston College.
“We had to,” senior guard C.J. Bryce said. “This was a big game for us.”
A year after struggling to pick up enough quality wins to impress the NCAA tournament selection committee, N.C. State notched its fifth “Quadrant 1” win on Wednesday.
“We talked about what a great opportunity this would be and we stepped up to the challenge,” said N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts, who improved to 2-0 against Duke at home.
Freshman forward Vernon Carey (27 points, 12 rebounds) led Duke, who trailed by as many as 23 in the second half and was down 44-29 at the half after Johnson’s bankshot from the right ear of the oversize head of Mr. Wuf near midcourt.
The Blue Devils, who had their seven-game winning streak snapped, shot just 23.5 percent (4 of 17) from the 3-point line and struggled from the foul line (10 of 22). It was the most lopsided loss for Duke to an unranked team in four decades under coach Mike Krzyzewski.
“That’s our worst game but they made us look bad, too,” Krzyzewski said. “They played great.”
Carey led a brief second-half surge for the Blue Devils, who got as close as 11 points at 11:18, but Johnson wouldn’t let him spoil the party. By the time the final seconds melted off the clock, the student section came pouring out to the PNC Arena floor. It was the first court-storming for the Wolfpack home crowd since a Jan. 2018 win over Duke in Keatts’ first season.
“The (court storm) was cool,” Funderburk said in the locker room after the game. “I didn’t want to get crushed so I came in here.”
N.C. State quickly put the BC disappointment in the rearview and couldn’t have asked for a better start. Johnson, who scored only four points in the loss to the Eagles, made a difficult twisting layup at 18:10 to get his night started off right.
Daniels, who has arguably been State’s best player for the past month, had 18 points in the first half. He was aggressive in taking the ball to the basket and attacking Duke’s interior. He finished 8 of 15 from the floor and added nine rebounds.
“I thought Devon Daniels really carried us in the first half,” Keatts said.
Johnson started to heat up from the 3-point line, making a stepback attempt over Joey Baker at 8:14 in the first half, to stretch the Wolfpack lead to 28-13.
Duke started 1 of 7 from the 3-point line and was sloppy in transition. Carey had nine points and seven rebounds in the first half. Sophomore guard Tre Jones finished with 17 points.
“We weren’t competitive,” Krzyzewski said.
For the Devils, it was their first loss since a 79-73 decision to Louisville on Jan. 18. For N.C. State, it was a chance to pick up an important win and improve its NCAA tournament chances.
“They knew they needed it and they got it,” Krzyzewski said. “They were hungry.”
And one
Carey might not be a perfect fit in the NBA next season but he was a handful on Wednesday. He made 10 of 20 shots and had 12 rebounds and three blocked shots.
“We had no answer for Vernon Carey and we knew it coming into the game but we wanted to do a good job of not letting the other guys beat us,” Keatts said.
Lane violation
Duke’s supporting cast didn’t offer much help to Carey. The Blue Devils have really turned into an NBA team where their role players are markedly better at home than they are on the road.
Matthew Hurt (1-2), Alex O’Connell (1-4), Joey Baker (0-1) and Jordan Goldwire (1-4) went a combined 3 of 11 from the 3-point line. They were 7 of 13 in Duke’s 94-60 home rout of Notre Dame this past Saturday.
ICYMI
With the loss, and Louisville’s win over Syracuse on Wednesday, Duke fell into a first-place tie with the Cardinals in the ACC race. Louisville holds the tiebreaker.
Making sense of the numbers
3-0 NC State’s record when Johnson makes a halfcourt shot with wins over Wisconsin, UNC-Greensboro and Duke.
2-5 Duke’s road record against N.C. State since the 2009-10 season.
6-5 Duke’s road record against North Carolina over the same time span.
This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 11:02 PM.
