The men's basketball team dealt UCLA its worst loss in history thanks to equal parts skill and strategy, with just a dash of luck thrown in.
Simply put, the Blue Devils were on Sunday, and the Bruins couldn't seem to get their shots to fall. During the first half, UCLA shot a miserable 26.2 percent from the floor, enabling Duke to rack up a 24-point lead at intermission.
The Blue Devils set the tone for the game early; Shane Battier's layup from Steve Wojciechowski just 1:39 into the game sparked a 19-3 run over the next 5:16 to bring the score to 21-8. Trajan Langdon keyed the offense during the opening minutes, tallying 10 of Duke's first 18 points as the Cameron Crazies feverishly chanted, "Trajan's winning!"
Throughout the game, Langdon remained at the vanguard of the Blue Devil offense, tying his career high for single-game scoring with 34 points. Langdon shot 11-for-16 from the field (68.8 percent), 6-for-10 from beyond the arc and a perfect 6-for-6 from the charity stripe.
"He was magnificent," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said of Langdon. "I'm excited to watch tape; [he played a] no-mistake game. He's such a competitor.... He's quiet, but he's as competitive a kid as we have. He's a warrior; he's a champion, and he played like one today."
Not that the Bruins made it particularly difficult for Langdon, or anyone else on the perimeter, to get open looks. UCLA frequently double-teamed Duke's post players-Battier, Chris Burgess and a now-healthy Elton Brand.
The Bruins' post defense left Duke's perimeter players with plenty of open looks, and they capitalized on the opportunity, shooting 53.6 percent from
The Blue Devils took advantage of UCLA's tendency to rush into the paint, driving toward the basket only to kick the ball out to someone waiting in the wings. Battier proved quite adept at fooling the Bruins, taking the ball under the basket and then feeding it back out to set Langdon up for two of his six trifectas.
"Especially with Brand back, what makes Duke the No. 1 team in the nation is now they have an inside-outside attack," UCLA coach Steve Lavin said. "They put great pressure on you because you have to help on a guy like Brand; you've got to help on a player like Burgess. And when you help down like that, now they've got you scrambling for the three-point shooters. It's a very difficult dilemma, because they've got three or four guys who can shoot the three-point line, but they have people inside that can score."
Last year, Duke's loss to UCLA came largely in part due to its reliance on the outside shot and its inability to rebound. Sunday, however, was a different story. While the Blue Devils' perimeter play once again carried the team offensively, this time they grabbed the boards to put away missed jump shots and prevent the Bruins from doing the same.
Duke in fact out-rebounded UCLA 46-36, thanks to Battier, Brand and, surprisingly enough, Wojciechowski, who accumulated a team-high seven boards apiece. Although Burgess only contributed four rebounds, he added four blocked shots, all in the first stanza, to further frustrate the Bruins.
Brand's return gave the Blue Devils an advantage in size, especially with the absence of Jelani McCoy, who quit the team last week. This disparity
"It allowed us to go inside and rebound a lot better," Battier said. "They were out-rebounding us in the first half, and once we got J.R. Henderson out of there, the interior opened up a lot more, and I don't think their offense flowed as much."
The Bruins sunk deeper into foul trouble when Baron Davis made an early exit with 4:03 remaining. Once recruited by Duke, the freshman point guard had jumped out to a quick start with 16 first-half points but slowed down after intermission, accumulating a mere two points, one less than he had fouls, in the second frame.
Having two starters foul out was not what cost UCLA the game, though. The Bruins' foul trouble was only one manifestation of its clumsy play Sunday. They collected 16 turnovers to Duke's nine.
Toby Bailey made two consecutive sloppy passes early in the second half, one that went out of bounds and another that seemed to be aimed for McLeod. Henderson and Earl Watson also made errant passes, which the Blue Devils took advantage of. A Kris Johnson traveling call and shoddy ball-handling in general gave Duke even more opportunities to blow its West-coast rival out of the water.
Duke won Sunday because it played what it considered to be its best game this year, but the victory was so decisive because UCLA failed to do the same.
"This was definitely our best game," McLeod said. "With a performance like tonight, if we play like we did tonight, I don't think we can be beaten."
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