Blue Devils advance past Cavaliers, 63-41

GREENSBORO - Hello Duke, welcome to Saturday at the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.

The No. 1 men's basketball team advanced to the semifinals of the ACC tourney Thursday night, turning a five-point halftime lead into a 63-41 win over Virginia at the Greensboro Coliseum. The top-seeded Blue Devils (28-2), whose senior class has never played on Saturday in the ACC Tournament, struggled mightily in the first half against the ninth-seeded Cavaliers (11-19) but took control in the second, especially on the defensive end.

In beating Virginia, Duke did what it failed to do last year when it lost its first round game to upstart N.C. State-defend its top seeding and advance to what ACC coaches and fans perceive as the tournament's prime-time event, Semifinal Saturday. It only takes one win to get there (or two if you are the Wolfpack, Thursday night's other winner over Florida State, 65-63), but as evidenced by the Blue Devils' lack of an appearance since 1994, it's no small feat.

"We have higher goals than getting to the ACC semis, but we've never been in since I've been here," said Duke's leading scorer Trajan Langdon, held to just 10 points on 3-of-11 shooting. "It feels good to advance, but we'll have to play for the whole 40 minutes like we did in the second half tonight."

For the first 20 minutes, the Blue Devils struggled to find any sort of rhythm on offense and shot an anemic 35 percent from the floor. Roshown McLeod struggled the most, hitting just 1-of-7 shots from the field.

"It's not acceptable for us to play like this," McLeod said. "We want to achieve great things, and we can't play like that if those things are going to happen. We let them be more physical than us in the first half."

Duke still managed only 38-percent shooting for the game, but took control right out of the gate in the second half, holding Virginia scoreless for just over six minutes to start the frame. For the half, the Cavaliers scored just 17 points. In the meantime, the Blue Devils opened up a 16-point advantage with McLeod scoring eight of the Blue Devils' first 11 points.

"We've been successful this year when I'm assertive on offense, so that's what we did," McLeod said "We ran some offensive sets to get me the ball, which helped, because we weren't getting anything in transition."

Wojciechowski and the rest of the Blue Devils will have an extra day to rest as Duke receives a bye to Saturday while the other six remaining ACC teams square off today. Most of the Blue Devils said they would take the majority of the day to relax, but would be sure to get a look at the game film from Thursday to see what went wrong on the offensive end.

"We hit a brick wall on offense today," McLeod said. "That's not good, but we're a good enough team that we can learn from our mistakes and bounce back."

For the Cavaliers, this was the fifth time this season they faced the nation's No. 1 team, and the fifth time they lost-both NCAA records. They now have six months off to regroup for next year. Thursday night's loss was the final game for Virginia's two All-ACC seniors, Norman Nolan and Curtis Staples.

Nolan went out scoring a modest 13 points, but he pulled down 15 rebounds. Staples went down firing as he hoisted up 13 three-pointers on the night, connecting on just three of them and finishing with 11 points.

While both left the floor on a sour note, down by 20, they left an indelible mark on both their team and the opposition.

"Just look at Norman Nolan when he walked off the floor tonight-the kid was crying," Krzyzewski said. "He's a warrior. I'd like to have both of those guys on my team. They're great players, and they've got class. Norman had one of the great years in the ACC and if you couldn't put two or three guys on Staples, he'd score a lot."

One other Cavalier who may not be back next year is head coach Jeff Jones. In his eight years in Charlottesville, Jones has led UVa to five NCAA Tournaments, four 20-win seasons and an ACC regular season crown. Still, the Virginia boosters and fans are screaming for Jones' job, especially with next year looking even worse than this one.

"I think Jeff Jones is one of the top coaches in college basketball," Krzyzewski said. "He's having a tough time, but anyone in his given situation would. His record speaks for itself; he has one of the best records in the country during his time as a coach."

While Duke rests back in Durham today, the tournament goes on in Greensboro. Today's action kicks off with Maryland facing Georgia Tech at noon, followed by North Carolina against N.C. State. The 'Pack narrowly avoided a last-minute comeback by the Seminoles Thursday night as a host of N.C. State players swatted away Kerry Thompson's potential game-tying layup at the buzzer.

The nightcap features Wake Forest against Clemson at 7 p.m. The winner of that contest faces Duke on Saturday at 4 p.m.