When Gerald Henderson launched his seventh shot of the game, his third 3-point attempt of the afternoon, it looked like a test-a test to see whether he could actually miss. With that shot and for almost 19 minutes of the first half, Henderson passed with flying colors, registering 17 of his 23 total points without missing a bucket.
Henderson's jaw-dropping performance, combined with stringent defense from the No. 3 Blue Devils as a whole, keyed a 76-67 victory over No. 13 Georgetown Saturday in Cameron Indoor Stadium. It was the last non-conference home game for Duke (16-1) this season, and the win was the 68th in a row at Cameron against opponents outside the ACC.
"He put them on his shoulders and carried them," Georgetown head coach John Thompson III said of Henderson. "He was terrific. He was unbelievable. He just got into the flow, and that happens with good players. He got into a rhythm and made everything he threw up."
But Henderson was even able to turn what others threw up into electrifying baskets. After a media timeout midway through the opening period, Jon Scheyer in-bounded the ball with a lob over a group of Hoya defenders. The timing was perfect, as Henderson cut to the basket and soared over the Georgetown players, finishing with a thunderous dunk that sent the crowd into pandemonium.
The alley-oop brought Duke to within a single point of the Hoyas (12-4), who started off strongly and seemed to have the Blue Devils on their heels for the first 12 minutes of play. But Henderson's heating up provided all the momentum needed to fuel a 17-2 run for Duke, giving it a 40-29 edge heading into halftime.
"The first half was great-it was special," Henderson said. "My teammates were finding me and I was knocking shots down. We got a good lead at the end."
But by no means were the Hoyas through. Georgetown stormed out of the break and within five minutes, it was a four-point game at 46-42. Junior DaJuan Summers, who scored 21 points, went off for the Hoyas, contributing six of the 15 points in the Georgetown surge.
But just as Georgetown started to wear down the Blue Devils, the Hoyas coughed up the momentum. After a foul was called on teammate Henry Sims, referee John Cahill hit Monroe with a technical foul after he heard something walking by the Hoya bench. Monroe immediately questioned the call and insisted after the game that he didn't say anything, but Scheyer was still sent to the line and made both free throws-two points which incited a 15-3 swing in the Blue Devils' favor. Within the next five minutes, Duke would hold a 61-45 lead, an advantage it never came very close to relinquishing for the rest of the game.
"It gave us two points," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We were really horrible on three straight offensive possessions in transition, where we could have gotten six points, and I think they ended up getting seven off of those, and that's a huge swing-potentially a 13-point swing. It was one of the worst swings of the game, and we were responsible for that. So, [the technical] just kind of stopped the game for a while. Maybe we righted the ship."
It wasn't just Georgetown's mistakes that propelled the Blue Devils onward, though. Kyle Singler almost recorded a double-double in the second half alone, grabbing 10 of his 16 rebounds and making nine of his 15 points in the period. The contest was Singler's fifth of the season in which he has had a double-double, and the third straight in which he either set or matched his career high in rebounding.
Greg Paulus was also crucial off the bench for Duke in the second period. After wrestling the ball away from Summers and then hitting a deep 3-pointer, Paulus slapped the hardwood to pump up the crowd and energize his team's defense. Just as Henderson's offensive prowess had before, Paulus' defensive effort and animated statement sent the crowd into a frenzy.
"We needed some energy, so I tried to make a play," Paulus said. "Luckily I got my hand on a ball, and it was just good energy that we needed. We had those types of plays... so we did a good job of closing the game out."
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