WINSTON-SALEM - The men's basketball team is going to need a whole lotta love today after taking the brunt of a Wake Forest basketball squad that preyed on a Blue Devil unit handicapped by foul trouble and poor shooting.
After a hard-fought and fitting 69-69 deadlock at the end of forty minutes of play, Duke battled through one overtime before collapsing in the closing five minutes. The loss was punctuated with yet another hostile crowd nearly stampeding the Blue Devils, as opposing fans rushed the court at the game's conclusion for Duke's fourth consecutive road loss this season.
"It's tough, going into someone else's home and getting a win," said Chris Duhon, who carried his team with a game-high 23 points. "It's the story of the ACC right now - no one is really able to do that."
In the past six years, however, Duke has been the exception rather than the rule in conference play, having gone a remarkable 79-11 in its last 90 ACC games. But Duke's reliance on youth and its inconsistent shooting - not to mention the vast improvement of its competition - has made its journeys away from home more frustrating than those of Odysseus.
Despite the close score, Duke's struggles last night were of epic proportions. The Blue Devils were only able to accumulate four assists; Wake had 15. The Demon Deacons outscored Duke's much-maligned interior players by 16 in the paint, and outrebounded them by 13. And the Blue Devils were steamrolled by a barrage of fouls that eventually banished five Blue Devils to the bench.
Duke also battled through a horrific shooting night, going a measly 31.5 percent from the field - and more importantly, an excruciating 16.7 percent in the pair of overtime periods. Conversely, Wake Forest made 52 percent of its shots and outscored Duke 20-6 in the last overtime.
"We just haven't shot well for three weeks," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We've been fortunate we've won three games during that time... The kids just have to keep shooting. I'd be upset if I thought our shot selection was poor, but they were good shots."
Krzyzewski went on to begrudge the fact that his players missed a total of 49 shots during the course of the game. And though Duke's struggles were consistent throughout the game, they were able to equalize their deficiencies with outstanding defense and effort. In the second overtime, however, Duke couldn't keep itself afloat any longer.
"We wanted it so bad, we were just penetrating trying to get it in and get rebounds," Duhon said. "We didn't have the discipline to send somebody back to protect the goal, so they were able to [break] out and get easy buckets."
Duke's offense was not terribly disciplined in the waning minutes, either. Duke was trailing just 76-75 with 3:40 remaining, but from then on out Wake got all the bounces still left over after 45 minutes of basketball.
Demon Deacons power forward Trent Strickland soared over a Duke defender and got his hands on an offensive rebound. He attempted a put-back dunk, but he rim-jammed instead. Yet rather than the ball caroming out of bounds, the ball clung to the hoop, bouncing directly above the rim for a second or two, and then dropped in for a three point lead.
Following a Blue Devil timeout, Wake Forest's fans were in a frenzy, singing and dancing to a techno song, hoping to prevent Duke from marching out for a quick retaliation. But the Blue Devils rushed their shots on offense, were impatient and seemingly panic-struck. A long Duhon three bounced hard off the rim and went into the hands of Demon Deacon point guard Taron Downey who raced down the court and laid the ball in for two more points. The Blue Devils' next possession went similarly, but this time Downey relayed the rebound to a streaking Vytas Danelius who scored a monstrous dunk, ending Duke's hopes of a comeback win.
"We definitely fought and we were in a battle tonight," Shavlik Randolph said. "We definitely put ourselves in a position to win.... If you're going to lose, you have to learn from your loss... if you're going to learn from it and move on then it's not too much of a bad thing."
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