KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Air Force may have been the veteran team, but it was the young Duke squad that made the necessary plays to pull out a 71-56 victory Monday in the semifinals of the CBE Classic in Kansas City.
After a dominating first half in which the No. 9 Blue Devils (4-0) led by as many as 18, the Falcons (4-1) clawed back to cut the lead to seven with less than eight minutes remaining.
Air Force had two chances to make it a two possession game, but the Falcons missed a layup and an open three-pointer, and Duke took full advantage.
Following a Greg Paulus miss, Josh McRoberts kept the ball alive and DeMarcus Nelson split two defenders for a layup to put the Blue Devils up nine. On the next Duke possession, Jon Scheyer curled off a screen for a three, but his attempt was blocked by Jacob Burtschi. McRoberts got to the loose ball for the second straight play and kicked the ball out to Paulus. Andrew Henke nearly intercepted the pass, but Paulus caught it cleanly and buried a three-pointer to put the Blue Devils ahead by 12, effectively ending the Air Force threat.
The Blue Devils hit 12-of-14 free throws and had just one turnover in the final four minutes to keep the game safely out of reach.
"Our guys showed a lot of poise tonight-it's a young team in its first road game," Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We played well, and they played well, and we were fortunate we won."
Junior DeMarcus Nelson led the Blue Devils with 23 points as Duke advanced to the CBE finals, where they will face Marquette, which defeated Texas Tech, 87-72, in the late game Monday.
With Marquette beating the Red Raiders, Texas Tech head coach Bobby Knight will not face Krzyzewski in what could have been a historic coaching matchup. Knight was Krzyzewski's coach at Army, and the two are among the winningest coaches in NCAA history.
Against the Falcons, Duke tripled Air Force's rebound total and limited the Falcons-who had hit 45 percent from three-point range this year-to just 5-for-21 shooting from beyond the arc, their lowest percentage since Jan. 5, 2005.
In the first game away from Cameron Indoor Stadium for Duke's four scholarship freshmen, the Blue Devils got off to a scorching start, hitting 12 of their first 14 shots. Duke shot 74 percent in the first half, including the freshmen combining to hit nine of their 11 attempts.
"Having five guys on the court that are very unselfish, it makes your offense even easier," Nelson said. "It takes a lot of pressure off your shots, and it takes a lot of pressure off yourself, because all five of us are looking for each other."
Duke was able to stifle Air Force's Princeton-style offense, which had produced 78.2 points per game coming into Monday's contest. The Blue Devils were beat on several backdoor cuts throughout the game, but they limited the Falcons to five made three-pointers after switching to a match-up zone defense.
"We just wanted to extend our defense and pressure them and make them handle the ball," said Nelson, who led Duke's defense with three steals. "We know that they are a great three-point shooting team, and so we wanted to chase them off as many threes as possible and then have our help side take care of the backdoor. I thought we did a great job with that, but we still couldn't totally stop it."
Notes:
Duke's most competitive game of the season also saw a notable shortening of the Blue Devil bench. With sophomore Jamal Boykin missing the game because of illness, only David McClure saw double-digit minutes off the bench, and the Blue Devils received just four points from their reserves.. John Wooden and Dean Smith were on hand to watch the game, one night after being inducted into the inaugural class of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. With Wooden and Smith in the stands and Krzyzewski and Texas Tech head coach Bob Knight coaching in the Classic, four of the winningest coaches in college basketball history were under the same roof Monday.
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