No Mercy: Duke 80 Virginia 62
Although Virginia started off very well Monday night, Duke had no problem in the end, winning 80-62.
Both teams were shooting 71.4% at the 16:00 and under timeout, but Duke’s defense clamped down and gave Virginia fits. Andrew Rohde, who had nine assists and zero turnovers in each of his last three games, had five and two here and the Cavaliers finished the game shooting 20-52 overall (38.5 percent) and 8-22 (36.4 percent) from deep.
Duke was just relentless. The Blue Devils finished shooting 31-59 overall (52.5 percent) and 9-23 (39.1 percent) from behind the line.
It seemed like Duke hit a lot more threes but Kon Knueppel hit 3-6 and Tyrese Proctor shot 1-3. All the rest?
Isaiah Evans, who got on a heater and finished 5-6, got them all.
Under Tony Bennett, Virginia just refused to let you score or to get very far ahead either. Clearly that’s not happening now.
Duke got out on the break fairly often and most strikingly, moved the ball efficiently against Virginia’s formerly challenging defense. There were a lot of layups and dunks.
The Blue Devils finished with 16 assists on 31 made baskets and some of the passes were just gorgeous. Under Bennett, you really couldn’t do that effectively very often.
Cooper Flagg was devastating again. He finished with 17 points and 14 rebounds. One block, which the pro-Virginia crowd clearly thought was goaltending, was stunning, and on another, he stripped a Virginia player in the backcourt and charged in for a dunk. Wahoo Anthony Robinson had other ideas though and went up and took the slam away.
Other than that though, there just weren’t many highlights for Virginia.
There were plenty for Duke though.
Three Devils finished with 17: Kon Knueppel, Evans and Flagg, who also pulled down a career high 14 rebounds.
The bad news came when Maliq Brown pulled up with a strange injury, holding his shoulder despite no contact on the play. He left the game and in the second half, wore a sling on the bench. That could be a real problem.
In general, this was a mismatch. Virginia played hard and you can’t fault their effort. These teams are in different zip codes now and while Virginia’s smothering defense dominated the ACC for more than a decade, now it’s Duke’s that’s doing it.
Unlike Virginia with BennettBall, Duke’s offense is also dominant, even on a night when three key players - Flagg, Proctor and Gillis - were non-factors on threes.
Next up for Duke is a trip to Madison Square Garden Saturday as the Blue Devils step out of conference to play Illinois.
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- Flagg has 17 points and 14 rebounds as No. 3 Duke beats Virginia 80-62