Following an intense comeback win against Miami sparked by several unlikely Blue Devil heroes, interim head coach Jeff Capel began Monday night's game with the same lineup that allowed his team to surge to victory in the second half Saturday against Miami.
This time, though, the story was turned on its head as Duke suffered a late collapse.
Led by freshman phenom Dennis Smith Jr., N.C. State used a late 20-5 run to stun the No. 17 Blue Devils 84-82 Monday evening at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Duke led 68-59 late in the contest, but Smith Jr.'s 32 points and six assists sparked his team's furious rally as the Blue Devil offense went cold.
“It’s very disappointing for us. We had some opportunities there, but we didn’t capitalize on them,” Capel said. “We couldn’t make a shot in the second half, got some good looks—we have to finish those—and then down the stretch couldn’t come up with a stop. Give them credit, they were terrific and we have to keep working to get better.”
Duke shot just 2-of-14 from long range after halftime—including six 3-point misses in the final 4:38—suffering through multiple long droughts en route to its first home loss. The Blue Devils cut the lead to two with 39.9 seconds left and one with 6.4 seconds left aided by an N.C. State turnover and five Wolfpack missed free throws, but came up just short in their third loss in four games.
With his team down two on the game's final possession, freshman Jayson Tatum dribbled it off his foot to give Smith Jr. a game-sealing steal. Although Smith Jr.’s final highlight—a tomahawk dunk after the buzzer sounded as he was engulfed by elated teammates—did not count on the scoreboard, the best player on the court was wearing red Monday evening.
“We didn’t have a timeout left and tried to push [the ball],” Tatum said. “I shouldn’t have turned it over. I probably should have kicked it ahead. That was bad, bad on my part. I had my back to him and lost the ball. It’s just a bad play on my end.”
As anticipated, it was Smith Jr. who led the Wolfpack from the start of the game. The No. 1 point guard from the Class of 2016 was in full control of his team's offense early and often, going 10-of-18 from the field and setting up forward Abdul-Malik Abu for easy buckets inside. Abu added 19 points and nine rebounds in the upset and had several dunks that energized Cameron’s N.C. State contingent, exploiting what has been a common weakness for Duke all season—an inability to prevent easy interior looks from opposing big men.
The Blue Devils appeared to stave off a Wolfpack surge to open the second period—eventually growing their lead to nine with 6:52 left in the game—but Smith Jr. continued to attack in the final minutes as Duke began to get sloppy on both sides of the floor. With 3:34 left, Abu slammed home a dunk after a feed from Smith Jr. to cut the deficit to one, and on the following possession, Smith Jr. nailed a 3-pointer to give N.C. State its first lead in more than 10 minutes.
Kennard responded with a triple of his own to give the home team a one-point advantage, but then the Wolfpack went on a 7-0 run in 1:20 to take back the lead for good. Although Kennard led four Duke players in double figures with 20 points, the Blue Devils never got stops they needed down the stretch to stop N.C. State (14-7, 3-6 in the ACC), which entered the game 173rd in basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted defense metric and had lost five of seven contests.
“We got a lead, kind of got comfortable,” Kennard said. “We have to be a team that closes out leads when we have them and we just couldn’t do that again. We all came down on the defensive end. We couldn’t get stops, we turned the ball over a couple times and they executed from that.”
At one point, Duke (15-5, 3-4 in the ACC) held a 12-point lead with 37 seconds left in the first half, but Smith Jr. single-handedly cut that lead in half before the clock hit zero, scoring six points in quick succession thanks to an acrobatic and-one layup and a buzzer-beating 3-pointer as both teams went to the locker room.
After the Blue Devils responded to N.C. State's early 9-0 spurt in the second half that gave the Wolfpack a 49-48 lead, N.C. State showed more toughness down the stretch to grab its first win at Cameron Indoor Stadium since 1995.
Duke’s youth and inexperience showed down the stretch as Tatum, Giles and Bolden struggled to defend, and it felt like the perfect opportunity for one of Duke’s top scorers—like Allen or Kennard—to deliver a clutch late-game performance. Neither was able to step up, though, with Allen struggling in particular—the junior had 13 points on just 4-of-13 shooting and was 1-of-9 from beyond the arc.
The Blue Devils will look to bounce back from another disappointing loss at Wake Forest Saturday afternoon.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.