Duke Claws Clemson, 67-54

Clemson understandably focused on Cameron Boozer, who has had a tremendous freshman year, but his teammates stepped up and put the game out of reach in the second half on the way to a 67-54 win.

The #20 Tigers stayed with Duke for the first 12:00 or so, daring his before the Blue Devils began to pull slightly ahead, building a 31-26 lead at the half, thanks in part to an excellent game by Isaiah Evans. This was doubly good since Patrick Ngongba got in early foul trouble and sat for most of the first half, thus making it easier for Clemson to try to shut down Boozer.

As always, Brad Brownell’s team defended tenaciously and made life tough for Duke, forcing several early turnovers, which made it tough for Duke to pull away early.

However, Duke also defended quite well. Clemson hit just one three-pointer before the half and Maliq Brown, filling in for Ngongba, did a great job on Carter Welling. Evans also defended very well. But the guy who Mike Krzyzewski might have called a 12-letter word, at least on defense, was Dame Sarr. His defense on Dillon Hunter at times was just breathtaking. Hunter only got four shots, only hit one, and never really had a chance to catch his breath. You know that old saw about being in someone’s jock strap?

That was the kind of defense that Sarr through at Hunter. It was just tremendous.

By the end of the first half, Duke had pulled out to a five-point lead and after the break, that just started to grow, ultimately swelling to a 22 point lead on a couple of occasions.

Clemson just couldn’t catch a break. The Tigers had 15 layup attempts and only hit 1/3 of those. Duke held the Tigers to just 25% on threes (6-24) and just 35% (20-57) overall. Duke limited Clemson’s starting guards to just 8 points for the game.

Only two players hit double figures for the visitors: Wlling hit for 12 and RJ Godfrey, the prodigal Tiger who left for Georgia before coming back, had 10.

People will look at this game and think it was no big deal, Duke was supposed to win and they only won by 13 points.

Well, Clemson is not that easy. That is a brilliantly coached team and even when their offense is not “dynamic,” as Brownell said afterwards, you better defend hard yourself because that team will take you to the woodshed.

Boozer ended up with 18 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists and two steals. Evans was close behind with 17 points and 1 lonesome rebound. Cayden Boozer had 12 off the bench.

It may not have been a beautiful game, but it was steady strangulation. At 10-1, Duke now has control of the ACC race and is in control of its own destiny. We’ll see how things go on Monday when Syracuse visits Cameron.

Notes – Duke is no 60-3 at Cameron under Scheyer and has won 16 straight ACC home games….Khamenia’s confidence may have been dented lately but it looked pretty good today…we may talk about this more later but Ken Jeong got a little carried away with his schtick at halftime when he was shooting the charity foul shot…the announcer had to tell him to move it along because Clemson was waiting to come out…he’s not the show…Boozer shot 5-8…Cayden not Cameron…Cameron shot 7-14…