A Monday night game being the 3rd game in 6 days, directly after a top 20 win against Clemson, truly felt like it could have been a trap game. Especially with the number 1 team in the nation looming next. It would be quite understandable if Duke saw some slippage. And while the Blue Devils didn’t start off the game supremely sharp, by the end of the first half, Duke had come alive. After sparring with the Orange for the better part of the half, Duke used an 11-0 run to end the half. Jon Scheyer frames these areas of the games as “inflection points.” And the Blue Devils certainly inflected or rather inflicted upon the Orange. A Cayden Boozer 3 sparked the run, followed by 2 Pat Ngongba free throws, 2 Cam Boozer layups, and punctuated by an alley-oop from Cayden Boozer to Isaiah Evans to end the half for the Blue Devils. The run was aided by 3 Syracuse turnovers in the final 1:42.
Another inflection point was the way the Blue Devils began the second half. A quick 8-2 run in the first minute and a half pushed the Duke lead to 22 and forced a Red Autry time-out. The timeout seemed to settle the Orange, who proceeded to go on an 11-8 run led by William Kyle’s 6 points. But if it wasn’t clear before, another Duke run, this time 16-6, salted the win away for Jon Scheyer’s team with 10 minutes still left to play.
It had to be supremely frustrating for Syracuse, who, by the numbers, played a great second half in terms of scoring, shooting 50% from the field and 54.5% from beyond the arc, just to lose the half by 21 points. As efficient as Syracuse was in that half, they turned the ball over 6 times, which led to 17 Duke points. Turnovers, coupled with the Blue Devils shooting nearly 72% from the field in the second half and 75% from beyond the arc, going 7-12, was just too much for Syracuse to overcome. Duke cruised to a 101-64 victory.
Cameron Boozer led the Blue Devils, scoring a game-high 22 points and pulling down 12 rebounds. Boozer’s double-double marks his 14th and his eighth with at least 20 points. Isaiah Evans scored 21 points, his third consecutive game scoring at least 17 and second with at least 20 in the same span. Nik Khamenia matched his career high with 14 points, shooting 5-for-7 overall, including a perfect 3-for-3 from deep. Big man Patrick Ngongba scored 12 points and added 7 rebounds, and senior Maliq Brown led the team with 6 assists and added 2 steals.