GREENSBORO, N.C. — It wasn’t always pretty Sunday at Greensboro Coliseum, but when the going got tough, Duke came through.
The top-seeded Blue Devils (29-5) appeared to have the ACC championship in the bag with three-and-a-half minutes to go and a 10-point lead over No. 7 Georgia Tech (22-12). Duke was in the double bonus, and all the team had to do was trade baskets with the Yellow Jackets the rest of the way.
All of a sudden, Derrick Favors slammed the ball home and the Blue Devils were nursing a one-point lead with under a minute remaining.
Enter Jon Scheyer.
Scheyer struggled shooting throughout the Tournament, hitting 13-of-40 shots in three games. He had a particularly difficult time Sunday against Georgia Tech, but he wasn’t shy when a big moment presented itself. With 18 seconds to go and Duke in need of a score, the senior co-captain drained a 3-pointer from the elbow—just his fourth basket of the day—to put his team up four and all but secure the win. Scheyer finished with 16 points, but shot 2-of-9 from beyond the arc.
“I knew it was nothing but bottom,” senior Lance Thomas said about Scheyer’s shot. “I knew it was going in. Jon wants the ball in his hands at the end of the game. I had no doubt in my mind and I didn’t even go for the rebound.”
“There’s something about Scheyer that produces wins,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
With the victory, the Blue Devils won their second consecutive conference tournament, 65-61, and their ninth in 12 years. It was also the 18th tournament title in program history, breaking a tie with North Carolina.
The Yellow Jackets had their chances, namely the 3-pointer from Maurice Miller that seemingly grazed every inch of the iron before rimming out. That shot would have tied the game, but Duke never relinquished the lead from start to finish. The team built an early advantage that didn’t dip below five until the final minutes. Even when Georgia Tech made its run by pressing and aggressively trapping the Blue Devils, Duke made its free throws, hitting 24-of-28 on the day.
“We don’t get tense,” Scheyer said. “Our team showed a lot of toughness making some stops and hitting a couple shots.”
Junior Kyle Singler epitomized that swagger on the court. Singler led the team in scoring for the fourth straight contest with 20 points and was named ACC Tournament MVP. He took several hits throughout the game, none more noteworthy than when he dove into the stands to save the ball and knocked over ESPN’s Dan Shulman and Dick Vitale, breaking Shulman’s headset in the process. Singler earned 16 shots from the line for his efforts, making 14 to overshadow an otherwise poor shooting night in which he converted just 3-of-15 shots from the field.
While Scheyer and Singler struggled, Nolan Smith and Andre Dawkins carried the Blue Devils early in the game. Smith scored 11 points in only 10 minutes in the first half in a variety of ways: off of curls, in the lane and from long range. The junior was hampered by foul trouble and never quite found his rhythm in the second session. He still finished with 16 points, and, along with Scheyer and Singler, was named to the All-Tournament first team.
Dawkins chipped in seven points in the first half, his highest scoring total in the calendar year. The freshman saw extended playing time when Smith was relegated to the bench, and he injected life into the crowd with a thunderous dunk when he took off in front of the free-throw line.
But it was the composure down the stretch that paid dividends for Duke. Heading into the NCAA Tournament, when every contest figures to come down to a few scores, the Blue Devils’ veteran leaders know they have the experience to make plays late in the game.
“Previous teams I’ve been on, I don’t know if we would have been tough enough to pull it out,” Scheyer said. “I thought we did a good job of staying poised and executing.”
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