Elton Brand showed some versatility in his game Saturday afternoon, driving coast to coast, faking a pass then converting a finger roll in the first half and sinking a long baseline jumper in the second.
For the rest of the contest, however, Brand stayed around the basket, where he punished undersized Florida State for 27 points on 11-of-15 shooting to lead the second-ranked men's basketball team (17-1, 6-0 in the ACC) to a 98-73 victory in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
"I'm pretty confident out there, kind of cocky even," Brand said. "If they get me the ball in the right place at the right time, I feel I can score a lot of the time."
And the 265-pound sophomore did score a lot of the time over Seminole big men Justin Mott and Oliver Simmons, who weigh in at 235 and 225, respectively.
Brand had nine points in Duke's 29-8 run over the final 1:46 of the first half and the first 6:59 of the second, which put away a scrappy Florida State squad (9-7, 3-2). Coach Mike Krzyzewski, though, was more concerned with his team's play over the other 31 minutes, in particular, its carelessness with the basketball.
"Our defense got hurt with our bad decisions sometimes in transition," he said. "We didn't get the ball to our ball handlers. We turned the ball over too much.... I'll bet they scored 16-20 points off our offense."
FSU scored 26 points off Duke's 19 turnovers, in fact. But several outstanding individual performances allowed the Blue Devils to overcome their sloppiness.
Will Avery contributed 21 points and six assists, and harassed Seminole point guard Delvon Arrington into five turnovers. Shane Battier added a strong all-around game, taking charges, diving for lose balls, blocking shots and making steals. And Chris Carrawell had another impressive defensive outing, as he held Ron Hale, the ACC's leading scorer in conference play, to six points.
Duke led for all of the first half but couldn't push its advantage over 10 until the last two minutes before intermission. Trajan Langdon hit the second of his six three-pointers with 1:46 remaining to make the score 41-30, then stole the ball from Arrington on the other end of the court. Langdon missed a layup on the ensuing break, but Battier got the putback.
After another FSU turnover, the Blue Devils held for the final shot of the half. Although Langdon missed an off-balance three with the shot clock winding down, Carrawell kept the ball alive and Brand followed, giving Duke a 15-point halftime lead.
"They have some guys who really stepped up and made some baskets, especially when they had to," said Seminole coach Steve Robinson. "Every time we tried to make a little bit of a charge at them, they had some guys step up and make plays."
Duke picked up right where it left off coming out of the locker room in the second half. Langdon nailed two more treys, and the Blue Devils didn't turn the ball over until more than seven minutes had gone by. Avery canned a 15-foot jumper at the 13:01 mark to put Duke ahead 67-38, but after that, the Blue Devils lapsed back into sloppy play.
"In the second half we came out strong," Brand said, "but about eight minutes in we let down again."
In a three-minute stretch midway through the half, Duke turned the ball over five times. The Seminoles were able to trim nine points off a 70-42 deficit with fast-break layups and second-chance shots as the Blue Devils were unable to get into defensive position.
FSU could pull no closer than 20, though, and Brand scored four more points as Duke pushed the lead back up to 27 with 7:06 to play. After being held to only six shots three days earlier against Wake Forest, Brand touched the ball early and often Saturday. But the first player in ACC history to be named player of the week three straight times credited his teammates with putting him in position to score.
"They're just finding me," Brand said. "They're making me player of the week."
Brand could find it more difficult to earn the honor the next two weeks, though. Starting with Wednesday's game at Clemson, the Blue Devils enter a difficult stretch that includes games on the road against No. 8 St. John's and North Carolina State and at home against No. 10 North Carolina and No. 4 Maryland beginning next week.
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