Duke Blue Devils vs Virginia Cavaliers Basketball Recap

Duke 76, Virginia 60

For nearly three quarters of a nervous weekend afternoon in the Carolinas, the Cameron Crazies were going crazy in all the wrong ways. To their immense relief, a nervous breakdown didn’t have to be endured inside a college basketball cathedral.

The Duke Blue Devils defeated the Virginia Cavaliers at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, North Carolina, on Saturday afternoon. It was a tale of two halves, with Virginia stunningly dominating the first, and Duke demolishing the Cavaliers in the second.

Duke took 28 minutes to recover from its first loss in nearly 10 months (at Florida State) earlier this week, trailing Virginia by as many as 10 points in the first half and nine points in the second before Andre Dawkins put the Blue Devils in front, 45-44, with 12:11 remaining in the game. Mike Krzyzewski’s Dukies then raced to the tape to finish off Tony Bennett’s Cavaliers by a deceptively large margin of 16 points.

Virginia was confident and tenacious to start the proceedings on Saturday afternoon near Tobacco Road. Despite two Duke scoring runs, the Hoos led 31-25 at the break. The Cavaliers played with typical “Beat Duke” intensity, highlighted by Mustapha Farrakhan’s 12 points and a perfect 3-for-3 performance in the first 20 minutes behind the three-point line. The Blue Devils were sloppy in the early stages of this Saturday soiree, committing nine turnovers - many on reckless passes – and simply couldn’t find the basket, landing only 1 of 12 3-point attempts.

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Virginia led by nine points with 16 minutes remaining in the game shortly after center Assane Sene, filling in for leading scorer Mike Scott (who, it was announced this week, is out for the season with knee surgery scheduled), was whistled for his fourth foul. The Blue Devils started a signature run at that point, finishing the second half with 51 points, leading by as many as 18 in a textbook demolition of an overmatched team.

That clinical dissection of Virginia is what everyone expected; what observers weren’t anticipating was that it would take so long for Duke to finally get rolling. It’s as though a certain degree of woundedness crept into the Blue Devils, fresh from the sting of the loss at Florida State. Fortunately, the defending national champions rebounded in time.

Duke’s Nolan Smith – still substituting at point guard while star Kyrie Irving heals an early season toe injury – had 29 points and seven rebounds to power Coach K’s crew. Dawkins had 14 points, and Kyle Singler had 13 points. Mason Plumlee contributed five points and 16 rebounds for the Blue Devils.

Farrakhan led the Cavaliers in scoring, although he was held to only three points in the second half. Joe Harris also had 15 points in Virginia’s losing effort.

The game marked the 15th consecutive time that the Blue Devils have defeated Virginia on Coach K Court in Cameron, dating back to 1995.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer