RALEIGH — Three road games, three losses, three courts stormed.
Behind forward Tracy Smith’s 23 points on 10-of-12 shooting, N.C. State (13-6, 2-3 in the ACC) exacerbated Duke’s woes away from Cameron Indoor Stadium Wednesday, upsetting the No. 7 Blue Devils 88-74 in Raleigh.
Dennis Horner added 20 for the Wolfpack, while Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith combined for 61 of the Blue Devils’ 74 points.
“[N.C. State was] terrific and we were not very good,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “They had great energy, a great game plan, and looked really fresh. We didn’t look fresh at all, and we just couldn’t match their energy.”
Despite a slow start, Duke (15-3, 3-2) rallied to within three points at halftime thanks to Nolan Smith’s acrobatic put-back 3-pointer as the period expired. But on the first possession of the second half, Singler fouled N.C. State forward Scott Wood, who was scoreless at the time, on a 3-point attempt.
The ensuing free throws doubled the Wolfpack lead, quickly quashing any Blue Devil momentum.
“We made some mistakes you cannot make in the first couple minutes to let them get free points,” Krzyzewski said.
That error spurred a 15-8 N.C. State run to begin the half, highlighted by two easy baskets for Tracy Smith in the paint that energized a packed RBC Center.
To stem the tide, the Blue Devils turned to the unconventional, switching to their rarely used zone defense in an attempt to prevent the Wolfpack from attacking the basket. The change seemed to energize Duke, as a Brian Zoubek block led to a jump ball and gave the Blue Devils possession.
But turnovers and ill-advised fouls prevented Duke from capitalizing, and a three by Wood, who finished with 10 points, quickly spurred another N.C. State run. An emphatic dunk by Horner concluded the spurt and ballooned the differential to 17 with nine minutes to play.
“We can’t just hope that they’re going to miss,” Scheyer said. “Throughout the whole game… they controlled the pace. They controlled everything.”
And Duke’s defense, the team’s calling card thus far this season, was decimated by the Wolfpack. N.C. State shot a scorching 58.2 percent for the game.
Prior to Wednesday, the Blue Devils had not allowed more than 73 points this season.
“Our defense was the worst it’s been all year. It was never, ever good tonight,” Krzyzewski said. We had to change our attitude on defense and we were never able to do that.”
Despite the defensive struggles, though, the Blue Devils were able to cut the lead to eight with just over four minutes to play thanks to Singler’s ability to attack the basket and draw contact. But just as time became a factor late in the contest, Javier Gonzalez was able to drain a long, contested 3-pointer as the shot clock expired to push his team’s lead to an insurmountable 11 points.
Gonzalez emphatically pounded his chest when the shot fell, once again giving the Wolfpack a double-digit lead that they would not relinquish.
“It was time for us to hit one of those,” N.C. State head coach Sidney Lowe said. “When [Gonzalez] hit that shot, because the clock was running down it gave our team a big boost, and the crowd got into it more, and we picked up on defense. That was a big play.”
The game had the looks of a back-and-forth affair early on, as Singler traded baskets with Tracy Smith in the opening minutes and the game was tied at eight with 15:35 to go.
An emphatic, coast-to-coast dunk by Mason Plumlee followed by a Scheyer three gave the Blue Devils a five-point lead, but it was their last of the contest. Plumlee proceeded to commit questionable fouls on back-to-back Wolfpack possessions, allowing N.C. State to cut the deficit to one.
A subsequent jam for Tracy Smith gave the Wolfpack a leadthat would gradually grow thanks to a suffocating press that gave the Blue Devils fits all night.
“I think everything caused us problems. We didn’t control the ball—we didn’t control the ball outside or when they got it inside,” Krzyzewski said. “It is very difficult to win the game when they have that type of freedom. They were strong with the ball.”
The Wolfpack opened up a seven-point lead with four minutes to go, but the teams traded baskets the rest of the half until Smith’s buzzer-beating shot for the Blue Devils cut the deficit to three at intermission.
Still, Duke’s inability to capitalize on that stroke of luck in the second half epitomized the team’s struggles away from Cameron thus far this season.
“There’s not a mental thing,” Scheyer emphasized. “It’s not like we can’t win on the road.”
If that is indeed the case, the Blue Devils will have an opportunity to prove it Saturday at Clemson’s notoriously hostile Littlejohn Collesium.
But thus far, three stormed courts beg to differ.
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