COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Forty seconds into the second half at the raucous Comcast Center, DeMarcus Nelson stole the ball from Maryland forward James Gist and coasted to the other end for the easy layup.
Nelson, and Duke, never looked back.
Behind at the half for the first time this season, the Blue Devils turned to their senior captain, and Nelson responded with the best performance of his Duke career.
On the same day he was named a candidate for the Wooden and Naismith awards, Nelson scored a career-high 27 points-19 after the break-to lead the Blue Devils back from nine points down at halftime. The 51-42 score at the break marked Duke's largest deficit of the season.
"It was just one of those times where you have to say, 'Enough is enough,'" Nelson said. "No matter what is going on out there, the game wasn't going the way we wanted it to at the close of the half, and at halftime we talked about making no excuses and overcoming adversity."
Nelson's fingerprints were all over the key moments of the second half, starting with the steal and layup in the first minute. He tipped in a Kyle Singler miss on the next possession to trim the Terrapins' lead to three. A three-point play and a second steal and dunk tied the score and completed a 17-8 run to start the half.
"There were a lot of strong kids playing on the court. It was a strong game," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "And I thought DeMarcus was the strongest. We had him on our side, and that's why we won."
Playing in their most hostile environment of the season, the Blue Devils were faced with more adversity midway through the second half. With the score tied at 67, both Greg Paulus and Singler picked up their fourth fouls in a span of five seconds. On the same defensive possession, however, Nelson stole the ball, drew a foul and hit both free throws to give Duke the lead and hush the Maryland faithful.
Moments later, the senior nailed a pull-up 3-pointer from the top of the key to push the Blue Devils' advantage to four.
Nelson's biggest bucket of the game, however, came right as the clock ticked into the final minute. After Gist cut the Terrapins' deficit in half with a three, Nelson culminated a long offensive possession and hammered the nail into the Maryland coffin with a driving layup for an 86-81 lead.
"Our mindset was that we weren't going to lose this game," Nelson said. "We were going to will the win, whatever it took."
The other Blue Devils seemed to feed off their captain's play. After a first half in which Duke often settled for jump shots instead of challenging the Terrapins' interior shot blockers, the Blue Devils repeatedly slashed to the basket and crashed the offensive glass. After the break, Duke had 12 more second chance points and shot seven more free throws than the team did in the first half.
Gerald Henderson, Nelson's complement on the perimeter, poured in 23 points on 9-of-12 shooting while Nolan Smith, playing critical minutes with Paulus in foul trouble, added 14 points off the bench. As a result of the aggressive mentality, the Blue Devils outscored Maryland 51-33 in what Krzyzewski labeled the team's "most impressive half of the season."
"Our captain was so good, and [Henderson] rose to another level being out there with him," Krzyzewski said. "Sometimes when you're playing, you look at somebody who's doing something, it inspires you. It gets you to play even better.... It's one of the great things in basketball to see teammates do that, and that's kind of what happened to us today."
Nelson's breakout performance came when Duke needed it the most. And a season after the Blue Devils struggled to a 4-4 record in ACC play on the road, the team left the Comcast Center 3-0 away from Cameron in conference play this year. Krzyzewski said it's all a part of becoming a team.
"We're not an outstanding team; we're a good team that's playing real hard," the coach said. "We have to collectively figure out how to win. So far we've done that. We've done a really good job of that."
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