HOUSTON — Duke and Purdue fought a heavyweight battle Friday at Reliant Stadium. The two teams both got punches in early and often, but ultimately, it was the timeliness of the Blue Devils’ hits that earned them the 70-57 victory.
Duke struggled for the majority of the first half, unable to find a rhythm on offense due to Purdue’s aggressive pressure defense. The Boilermakers appeared set to assume control heading into the break, but a key run to close the half allowed the Blue Devils to gain momentum going into halftime.
With just under two minutes to play in the first half, Purdue took a four-point lead, forcing Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski to call time. His team responded with a five-point spurt of its own to regain the advantage.
“At the end of the last media timeout for the half, I just thought we changed a little bit,” Krzyzewski said. “For whatever reasons we changed, and we were able to implement that change on the court.”
Singler was the catalyst of that run, knocking down a 3-pointer behind a Nolan Smith screen to pull the Blue Devils within one. He then stole the ball from Purdue's Kelsey Barlow and took it coast-to-coast for what should have been a thunderous dunk, but—in keeping with a poor shooting effort in the first half—resulted in the ball being jammed between the rim and the backboard.
Duke was forced to reset, and a play that was originally designed to get senior guard Jon Scheyer open for a three resulted in a Smith floater that fell through just as time expired, giving the team the lead—and an emotional lift—at the break.
“It was very important that we did something at the end of the first half, made some plays,” Singler said. “I thought it was a big boost.”
Nevertheless, as was the case throughout the contest, Purdue managed to claw its way back. The Blue Devils pulled away by two possessions twice at the start of the second half, but the Boilermakers kept preventing Duke from delivering the final knockout blow until Smith finally found his groove.
The junior guard epitomized the Blue Devils’ offensive woes in the first half, but made the one push in the second period that Purdue could not counter.
“I thought Nolan did a great job of really attacking the basket, coming up with big buckets,” Singler said.
With just under 10 minutes to play, Smith started his spurt with a midrange jumper off of a screen from sophomore forward Miles Plumlee. He appeared to cramp up on the play, but showed no effects of it on the ensuing possession, when he drove to the basket to put Duke up six.
Singler came up with the assist on the next possession, causing a deflection and finding Nolan on the break for a transition three—the guard’s only long-range basket of the game, and the nail on the coffin of Purdue’s season.
“Nolan’s spurt there was probably the biggest spurt of the game,” Krzyzewski said.
“Once they went on that run, it was definitely hard for us to catch back up at that point,” Boilermaker guard E’Twaun Moore said.
In a game that featured little separation through the first 30 minutes, Duke needed those key runs to keep the Boilermakers at bay.
And ultimately, it was the veteran Blue Devil squad that was left standing in the ring, ready for at least one more battle in Houston.
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