No. 2 Duke looks to overcome PNC Arena woes against N.C. State

The Blue Devils are headed back to the scene of the crime.

PNC Arena has not been kind to Duke in recent years. Two years ago, No. 20 N.C. State dealt the top-ranked Blue Devils their first defeat of the season in an 84-76 Wolfpack win. Last March, Duke faltered down the stretch and lost 78-71 to 14th-seeded Mercer, its second one-and-done exit from the NCAA tournament in three years.

When the ball is tossed in the air at mid-court Sunday at 1:30 p.m. in Raleigh, senior guard Quinn Cook won't be thinking about the demons from those games. But he and the rest of the No. 2 Blue Devils would certainly like to snap the streak.

"I'm 0-2 there," Cook said Friday after practice. "I'm not going there thinking, 'Oh, Mercer. Oh, N.C. State.' It's a new team, it's a new year, and hopefully myself, Amile [Jefferson and] Rasheed [Sulaimon] will get our first win [at PNC Arena]."

Duke (14-0, 2-0 in the ACC) trailed late in a game for the first time all season Wednesday against Wake Forest, but used a 12-2 run to pull away from the Demon Deacons and claim its 14th consecutive victory—its first all year by single-digits.

Playing their first road conference game, Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones powered the Blue Devils on a night when classmate Jahlil Okafor didn't attempt a shot for the first 14 minutes of the game. The duo combined for 28 points, and Jones' three-point play in the closing minutes effectively sealed the win after the Demon Deacons had stolen the Blue Devils' momentum.

Despite the squad's inexperience, Duke effectively flipped the script from last season, when Wake Forest scored 17 straight points to pull off the win. Two weeks later, Mercer scored 11 unanswered down the stretch in Raleigh for the biggest upset of the tournament.

"Last year, we probably would have lost that game—we did lose a lot of those games," Duke assistant coach Nate James said. "But I think this year's group, they're certainly confident, they believe that they're good.... I think it's a good thing to be able to learn and win as opposed to having to learn from a loss."

To Cook's point, the Wolfpack (11-5, 2-1) are also a new team from the one that topped the Blue Devils in the captain's sophomore season. No player on N.C. State's roster played a minute in that game, but Mark Gottfried's squad is brimming with talent with an infusion of SEC transfers and prized recruits.

Alabama transfer Trevor Lacey has picked up much of the offensive production that left Raleigh when T.J. Warren opted for the NBA draft. After sitting out last season, the 6-foot-3 guard is averaging a team-best 16.7 points per game, and his fearlessness makes him N.C. State's go-to scorer, able to score in a variety of ways.

"He's done a great job of really getting rid of some of that worry of where the offensive power would come from [without Warren]," James said. "He's a guy that can manufacture his own baskets in tough situations and have the confidence to hit big shots."

Senior guard Ralston Turner—who transferred from LSU after the 2012 season—complements the dangerous driving abilities of Lacey and point guard Anthony "Cat" Barber, with a quick release and deadly accuracy from long-range. Turner shoots 40.6 percent from beyond the arc, where he takes nearly two-thirds of his shots.

The 6-foot-5 sharpshooter has the greenest of green lights, and already has five games with at least four triples this season, including a 33-point explosion Dec. 17 against Tennessee, when Turner hit 8-of-17 attempts from downtown.

"We'll have our hands full Sunday, and it's going to be a full team effort trying to make those guys work," Cook said. "You're not going to shut them down, you've just got to make them work for everything."

On the interior, a slimmed-down BeeJay Anya will attempt to make life difficult for the Duke frontcourt. Anya arrived on campus as a freshman weighing around 350 pounds and struggled with endurance last season. After shedding 55 pounds, the 6-foot-9 forward is more agile and is blocking an ACC-best 3.1 shots per game thanks to an incredible 7-foot-9 wingspan.

That size and length—along with active post players Kyle Washington and Lennard Freeman—will go to work defending Okafor, who finished Wednesday's game with a season-low 12 points against a unique Wake Forest double-team.

"Anya [has] probably the longest wingspan of anybody in college basketball, probably even in the NBA," James said. "[His shot-blocking ability is] something that Jah hasn't seen thus far."

That doesn't mean the preseason AP Player of the Year is going to be switching things up, though.

"[I need to] just do what I do. I don't have to change my game or anything like that," Okafor said. "Coach is going to give us a game plan, and myself and my teammates are going to go out there and execute."

Amrith Ramkumar contributed reporting.