On the night The Landlord's No. 23 jersey was raised to Cameron Indoor Stadium's penthouse, the Blue Devils paid homage to the big man by controlling the glass and the paint en route to a 75-61 win over Boston College Sunday night.
No. 10 Duke (18-3, 5-2 in the ACC) knocked off the Eagles, who had the best conference record coming into the contest, to move within one game of first place in the league. The victory was the team's fifth in a row after dropping its opening two ACC games.
The Blue Devils doubled the Eagles' production in the paint, 44-22, and out-rebounded Boston College (14-6, 6-2), 41-30. Duke grabbed more offensive rebounds than the Eagles did defensively.
"This game was won obviously on the boards," Boston College senior forward Jared Dudley said.
Josh McRoberts recorded his fifth double-double of the season with 16 points and 12 rebounds. McRoberts blocked five shots while changing numerous others. He also helped DeMarcus Nelson contain Dudley-the ACC's second-leading scorer-by doubling off the block.
Nelson and Dudley went back-and-forth at each other all game and finished with matching 17-point, eight-rebound stat lines.
Nelson fueled one of the only runs of the game, when he scored six points in the final 75 seconds of the first half. His driving layup with three seconds remaining capped an 8-1 Blue Devil run and gave Duke a 40-32 cushion at the break.
"The last couple of minutes of the first half was the critical time in the ball game," Krzyzewski said. "Every once in a while a player plays above, and DeMarcus for those few minutes was the best player on the court. He just shot us into an eight-point lead. It was so good to see."
The Blue Devils maintained that margin throughout much of the second half, as the Eagles never closed within five. Boston College's best chance after the intermission came with just less than five minutes to play when Sean Marshall missed a three-pointer that could have cut the lead to three.
"We had some opportunities and just didn't take advantage of it," Boston College head coach Al Skinner said. "We'd get close, and we'd get the chance to get it to six or to four, and we made a mistake. We just can't afford that because we really didn't turn them over to get easy baskets for us."
Marshall-who entered the game averaging 16.3 points per game-struggled all night, shooting 2-for-11 and scoring only seven points while committing four turnovers.
Duke's defense was also able to stifle Eagles' point guard Tyrese Rice. After scoring 11 points in the first half, Rice managed only two after the break, missing seven of his eight shots.
The Blue Devils used Dave McClure or Lance Thomas as an extra defender to help Greg Paulus slow Rice down near midcourt. The token pressure-although it did not cause a turnover all game-took the Eagles out of their regular offensive flow and limited them to just 34.5 percent shooting for the game.
"Duke does man-to-man full-court denial," Dudley said. "Offensively, your game has to be strong. What we lacked tonight was the ability to get into [our offense]. They tried to take away Tyrese by bringing McClure up-make him give the ball to John Oates. That was definitely something we weren't ready for. They take away your first option always."
McClure and Thomas were also presences on the offensive side of the floor. McClure notched nine points and was noticeably more confident on the offensive end after his game-winning basket against Clemson Thursday night. Thomas was as active as he has been all season offensively, as the freshman had a career-high nine rebounds, and his 10 points were the most he's scored since November.
Duke finally came out in an offensive rhythm in the first half, shooting 52.9 percent before the intermission. The Blue Devils' first eight points all came on highlight-reel plays, including two alley-oops to McRoberts. The big man returned the favor with a behind-the-back pass to Paulus for a layup to culminate the hot start.
NOTES:
Dave McClure left the game with six minutes remaining with an injury to his left knee-the same knee the forward had surgery on in May 2005, causing him to miss last season. The Cameron crowd fell silent as McClure-Thursday night's hero-was on the floor for several minutes after appearing to have his knee kicked by a BC player. "We're very concerned about Dave," Krzyzewski said. "These last five games, there's nobody that's been any more important than McClure. We don't think it's unbelievably serious, but it's serious enough that he couldn't play."... Paulus had six assists and just one turnover, his best assist-to-turnover ratio since the season opener against Columbia... Marty Pocius saw his first significant action in ACC play, scoring four points in seven minutes in the first half.
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