George Washington could not tell a lie.
Neither could the coach of the basketball team that bears the founding father's name. The Colonials' head coach Mike Jarvis minced no words when describing his team's 103-73 loss to Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium Tuesday night.
"There's not a hell of a lot I can say [about the loss]," Jarvis said. "It was a very humbling experience for us."
The Duke men's basketball team controlled the game from the outset, and never looked back. An incredible first-half performance helped the No. 9 Blue Devils (4-1) demolish the George Washington Colonials (5-2) by a 30-point margin of victory.
Duke was led by a career-high performance from senior Cherokee Parks, who accumulated 29 points by shooting 80 percent from the field in just 27 minutes of play. The Blue Devil bench also aided in the trashing of GW, outscoring the Colonials' bench 40-2.
"Our depth took its toll on George Washington," Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "They were undermanned."
George Washington was without the aid of its starting senior guard Omo Moses, who is sitting out with a sprained ankle. Moses has led the Colonials in assists and steals this season.
"Moses is our best," Jarvis said. "If they didn't before, our team will definitely appreciate him now. It's a different basketball game [without Moses]. He would have made a lot of difference in the way the game was played."
Duke jumped out to an early lead, outscoring GW 23-9 in the first six minutes of the game. Then, the Blue Devils widened the margin on a 16-4 run over the next five minutes -- a run that was capped off by a three-pointer from Parks. The Colonials were never quite able to recover from the pounding they received in the first half.
"In the first half, we didn't falter -- no matter who we had in," Krzyzewski said. "We kept the intensity up. Our defense was very good, and we had good opportunities on the offensive end."
It seemed as if Parks could do no wrong in that first half. He notched 19 points, shooting 8-of-9 from the field in 14 minutes of play during that half, and he also nailed all three of his attempts from behind the three-point arc.
"Cherokee has always been a good shooter," Krzyzewski said. "He is the man on this team. He's setting a good example. He's been working in concert with what we want for him."
However, this was not a one-man ballgame for the Blue Devils. Freshman Trajan Langdon had an impressive showing off the bench, contributing 11 of his 17 points in the first half, including 4-of-5 from three-point land for the game.
"[The win] felt great," Langdon said. "We wanted to come out and dominate offensively and defensively. We took good shots and had good ball movement. [The first half] was as well as we have played [this year]."
The Blue Devils parlayed their excellent play into a 30-point halftime lead. Duke dominated GW in every way during the first half, including amassing a 14-0 margin from points off the fast break and shooting 65 percent from the field, compared to the Colonials' 34 percent.
The Blue Devils erased any doubt about who would win the game after that impressive first half.
Perhaps the only questions which remained unanswered at halftime were exactly how many points Duke would score and how many players would have career highs that night.
However, the Colonials did not just roll over and play dead in the second half. After falling behind by as many as 36 points with 12:53 left in the game, George Washington put together an 18-4 run over the Blue Devils, bringing GW within 22 points. But Duke regained its focus and stopped the late attempt of a comeback, swinging back into the game with 6:22 left to play on a jumper by sophomore Jeff Capel.
The game was finished off with a pair of three-pointers in the closing seconds, the first by Langdon and the second from sophomore reserve Carmen Wallace.
Both teams scored 42 points in the second half, leaving the final margin of victory at 30 points. George Washington was hampered by its overall field goal percentage of 36, and the Colonials only knocked down three of their 14 attempts from beyond the three-point arc.
"I would like the opportunity to play Duke again," Jarvis said. "We're going to have a super program. We're an excellent basketball team -- we're 5-2 --and we've got some good wins behind us."
However, the Duke team that was on the floor during the first half of Tuesday's game was too much for the underpowered Colonials. And perhaps one of the brightest points about this year's Duke team is that it still has some growing and improving to do.
"I'm still learning about my basketball team," Krzyzewski said. "Our rotation is based on competition. I like making tough decisions -- when everyone's playing well. We're still learning about one another."
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