Whatever caused Duke's slow start Monday, it was conspicuously absent in the team's 93-40 drubbing of Seton Hall Wednesday.
Two nights after a 64-47 victory over Boston University, the Blue Devils exploded out of the gate and ran the Pirates out of the building to advance to the semifinals of the NIT Season Tip-Off.
After opening the game on a 26-4 run, Duke cruised as 11 players scored and nine played double-digit minutes. Senior J.J. Redick led the Blue Devils with 18 points, 16 of which came in the first half.
The Blue Devils started the game with an intense full-court defense that pressured the Pirates into an abysmal 4-for-31 shooting performance before the break. After forward Stan Gaines hit a jumper on Seton Hall's first possession to give the underdogs a brief 2-1 lead, the Pirates went without a field goal for nearly 15 minutes, missing 22 consecutive shots.
"I thought it was a really good defensive effort," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "There were no open passes, and when you make a team think that hard about passing the ball, then it is not going to have as much concentration on shooting it."
During that stretch, Duke ripped off 15 straight points to take a commanding 16-2 lead, capped by DeMarcus Nelson's one-handed alley-oop from Sean Dockery that was reminiscent of Grant Hill's highlight-reel slam. Dockery finished the game with a career-high seven assists.
Seton Hall never recovered, looking lost as its leading scorer last season, Kelly Whitney, managed just one point in the first half, and Duke took a 43-13 lead into halftime.
"You got to have some success early to get some confidence and it never seemed to happen for us," Seton Hall coach Louis Orr said. "I think we kind of rushed some shots early and it just kind of steamrolled. It's hard to say--I've never seen anything like it."
While the Pirates could not get a shot to fall, the Blue Devils often looked as if they could do no wrong. With just over six minutes remaining in the first half, Sean Dockery lost the handle of the ball and in the resulting scramble managed to pass it to freshman Greg Paulus, who found a wide-open Eric Boateng under the basket for an easy layup and his first career points.
On the next Duke possession, Redick dropped a routine pass from Dockery, but the senior proceeded to pick the ball up from his feet and nonchalantly bury a contested three-pointer. The bucket put the Blue Devils up 33-5 and prompted Orr's fourth timeout of the period.
Much of Duke's first-half success came without senior Shelden Williams, who picked up his second foul just over eight minutes into the game. Williams, who scored only seven points, has been forced to sit early because of foul trouble in each of Duke's first two games, but Krzyzewski said he is not worried about his senior big man.
"Shelden is a very disciplined player," Krzyzewski said. "I would have brought him back in, but when Eric and some of these guys were doing so well, I thought we should take advantage of it."
Duke squashed any notion of a Pirate comeback early in the second half, as freshman Josh McRoberts threw down an emphatic dunk on a baseline drive on the first play after intermission. The Blue Devils used the second half to try out several different lineups and stretched the lead to 81-31 with more than six minutes remaining before retreating into a stall to close the game.
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