Many questioned whether or not Duke would be able to handle No. 20 Wisconsin's big men in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge matchup in Cameron Indoor Stadium Tuesday.
But the seventh-ranked Blue Devils answered their doubters early and emphatically by neutralizing the Badgers' inside presence and running all over the hardwood to secure the victory, 82-58.
"We wanted to get up and down the court," sophomore Gerald Henderson said. "We felt that we were faster than them, a lot quicker than them. With the training and the conditioning that we do, we could use that to our advantage.... We really pushed the tempo."
The game was epitomized during a 40-second stretch midway through the first half, when Duke (7-0) used both its impressive defense and its strong shooting to pull away from Wisconsin (5-1).
Trailing 19-14, the Badgers' 6-foot-10 center Jon Leuer, one of the highly-touted post players expected to give the Blue Devils trouble, pulled up for a short jump shot only to have it swatted from behind by Henderson. The block led to one of Duke's many fast breaks on the night and resulted in a Greg Paulus three-pointer at the other end. Once DeMarcus Nelson stole the ball and dished it to the corner for Paulus, who then hit his second long ball in fourteen seconds, Cameron Indoor Stadium was rocking and Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan was forced to call a timeout.
But the Badgers never recovered and the Blue Devils never looked back, owing their 29-11 run at the end of the first half to 6-for-11 three-point shooting during that stretch.
"The three should be a huge weapon for us," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "Those two for Greg were kind of like broken plays.... That's not something the coach calls.
"I told the guys tonight would be a players' game. They need to be instinctive and there won't be much strategy from the bench. I thought our players reacted well to that."
Duke continued to display a balanced offense throughout the remainder of the game, as five players scored in double figures, led by Paulus' 18. The junior became the fifth different player to lead the team in scoring in the first seven games. And the Blue Devils were able to impose their will in other areas as well.
In its first five games this season, Wisconsin averaged 16.6 more rebounds than its opponents. Even with ten players listed at 6-foot-5 or taller, the Badgers were only able to pull down two more boards than Duke. The Blue Devils were able to counter Wisconsin's height and size by sending all five players to the rim, Henderson said.
There was no more telling statistic of this fact than guard Jon Scheyer's team-high nine rebounds, a small piece of the larger 'team-player' mentality that Duke has exuded often this season.
"It's cool scoring points and everything, but making plays is the biggest thing on our team," Henderson said. "You don't want to be known as just a scorer, just a rebounder or just an assist guy. Coach always emphasizes just being a player."
The Badgers made some halftime adjustments that led to more entry passes down low and easier buckets, but they still never got closer than 18 after the intermission. Shifting from their fast-paced tempo of the first half, the Blue Devils slowed the game down after the break, when they showed signs of fatigue from having played five games in nine days, Krzyzewski said.
Most importantly, though, Duke never lost focus of its gameplan. The Blue Devils showed they were not only prepared for the style of their opponent but also had a deep understanding of the kind of team they really are.
"We could not play a game where we're going to try to muscle them inside. Otherwise, we'd get killed," Krzyzewski said. "So we had to try to make it more of a perimeter game and we were able to do that a lot. That's why we won."
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