CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- After the men's basketball team (17-4, 7-4 in the ACC) lost four consecutive road games, the Virginia Cavaliers (14-9, 5-6) came out silent when pleading for the fifth.
Shelden Williams scored 20 points and pulled down eight rebounds as Duke controlled the game from the get-go in its 78-59 victory. The 6-foot-9 freshman blocked four shots in the first half and scored 14 in the second to give Virginia its first loss at home this season.
"I was concentrating on defense in the first half," Williams said. "But we were getting more stuff on the block in the second. It helped me a lot that I could play good defense in the first half. I tried to show I could come out and dominate."
Showing no signs of fatigue after a double-overtime loss to Wake Forest Thursday, the Blue Devils blasted out of the gates, hitting their first three shots and going on a 10-0 run to create an 18-6 lead with 10:55 remaining in the first half.
Coming off the bench, Daniel Ewing scored eight of the run's 10 points, highlighted by a spectacular dunk.
After a steal by center Casey Sanders, Ewing raced ahead of the pack. Rising above the defense, Ewing soared with the ball in his right hand, briefly guided the ball with his left, then ferociously slammed it down with his strong hand. It is a move Ewing has finished many times with a layup off the glass, but the forceful dunk showed the extra energy Duke had for this game.
"Today we had some easy buckets in
Virginia never seriously challenged Duke after this point. The Cavaliers opened with one of their worst offensive halves of the year, scoring only 22 points on 9-for-26 shooting in the first 20 minutes.
Much of the credit can be handed to Williams, who held Virginia's All-ACC candidate Travis Watson to only six points in the entire game.
"Our defense was outstanding," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "I would have never guessed that Travis would not get double figure points against us. We are fortunate that Shelden did a really good job on him."
In the two teams' first meeting of the season, Duke needed a career high 34 points from freshman J.J. Redick to compensate for Virginia's domination in the post. In this contest, the Blue Devils out-rebounded the Cavaliers 43-36 and out-scored the Wahoos 38-28 in the paint. Duke accomplished this despite playing without freshman forward Shavlik Randolph, who sat out with the stomach flu.
One of the few positives for Virginia Saturday was the play of Elton Brown. The sophomore scored 18 points, 12 of which occurred in the second half.
"The only guy that played really well was Elton Brown," Virginia head coach Pete Gillen said. "The other guys just didn't have it. They didn't make shots, didn't play well, didn't do the things they usually do."
Although they appeared
Not to be denied his victory, senior Dahntay Jones, who has never won a game at University Hall, soared over 6-10 Cavalier Nick Vander Laan for a spectacular one-handed, tomahawk dunk. Jones scored 13 of his 17 points in the second half.
"This was a very big game for us," Jones said. "We had to get a road win under us and get our confidence up."
Redick, who was the Virginia AAA player of the year for Cave Springs in Roanoke, Va., scored 15 points in the game, 10 of which came in the first half. The 6-4 freshman, who had not been shooting well of late, did this despite being constantly booed by the bitter Virginia fans, who were upset because Redick has stated he would have been a Cavalier had he not been a life long Duke supporter.
Duke shot 44.8 percent from the field for the game, a welcoming sign after shooting under 34 percent in its last three contests.
"Duke was really sharp," Gillen said. "We got stunned early and never really got off the mat."
Krzyzewski was especially happy with his team's play because of the resilience it showed after losing to Wake Forest only two days earlier.
"I'm really proud of our guys because losing that heart-breaking double over-time loss to Wake, and the quick turn around takes a special group of kids as they did tonight," he said.
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