As junior walk-on Ryan Caldbeck drained a foul shot for the 100th point, Cameron Crazies everywhere breathed a resounding sigh of relief.
Duke (1-2) had finally put one in the win column with a 100-42 massacre of Army Saturday night.
"It feels good to win," said senior captain Chris Carrawell, who led the team in rebounding. "I've never started a season 0-2 since junior high."
The rout was a tale of the big men, as freshmen Nick Horvath, Casey Sanders and Carlos Boozer made their official debuts at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Boozer, making his first career start, showed no signs of the broken foot which had slowed his preseason progress. The 6-foot-9 freshman scored his first two points at home this season on a layup in the first minute of play.
"[Boozer is] eight more days conditioned now than in New York," coach Mike Krzyzewski said, "and he gives you a good target in [the paint]."
The Cadets answered back with two points of their own to tie the game, 2-2. It was the last time they would be tied with the Blue Devils.
Duke quickly ran up the score, stymieing the Army offense for three straight minutes, during which Sanders endeared himself to the Blue Devil fans by going airborne and delivering the first dunk of the game.
Shane Battier used the home-opener to prove that he can be an offensive as well as defensive leader, extending Duke's early lead to 32-8 with a steal and a dunk at the other end of the floor. The 1999 Defensive Player of the Year finished with a game-high 17 points.
Jason Williams dazzled the fans early with a quick reverse layup and foul for a three-point play. The point guard finished with 14 points and four rebounds.
"Jason did a good job working on things in a game situation," Krzyzewski said. "He had two fouls in the [first three minutes] and his goal was not to get a third one."
With the score 52-15 at halftime, the second half was a mere formality for the Blue Devils. They had already proven that they could beat up on a smaller, younger and less talented Cadet club.
What they hadn't shown yet was the ability to finish off their opponents.
Duke came out roaring in the second half with 15 unanswered points, halted only by Cadet Chris Spatola's first three-pointer with 14:46 left in the game. The Blue Devils promptly added another 15-point run to go ahead 82-18.
Duke controlled the paint the entire game, typified by a move Nate James made in a crowd of four Army defenders. James wormed his way out of the pileup to score on a hook and convert the foul shot. The junior had 15 points and four rebounds.
Army brought very little height onto the court, with 6-9 center Matt Rutledge as the Cadets' tallest player. Rutledge and two other players committed four fouls each, which crippled an already mismatched Army offense early.
The Cadets recorded nine fouls before scoring nine points and put Duke in the bonus by the middle of the first half. The Blue Devils were only too happy to practice their free throws, making 67 percent in the first half and improving to 72 percent in the second.
Army sophomore Chris Spatola's three-point shooting allowed the Cadets to save some face. The Babylon, N.Y., native went 4-for-11 from beyond the arc in the second half. But even Spatola's heroics could not resurrect a thoroughly dominated Cadet squad whose 14 turnovers translated into 24 Duke points.
"That's just a combination of youth and being in Cameron," Krzyzewski said. "They're a young team who can obviously shoot well and they were missing one of their key players."
After Duke began the season 0-2, its worst start since 1958, with losses to No. 9 Stanford and No. 8 Connecticut in New York, all the Blue Devils wanted to do was come home to Cameron.
With the win, Duke extends its home winning streak that began on January 13, 1997 to 37 wins. That broke the school record for consecutive home wins, which formerly stretched 36 games from November 14, 1990 to January 13, 1993.
"[Saturday night] we proved that you can score 100 points without shooting a lot of threes," Carrawell said. "For the freshmen, all eyes were on them and what they were going to do. They played hard and played well."
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