Boozer leads Duke past Clemson
Juneau graduate records his fourth straight double-double
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke is looking for a haymaker, but so far the top-ranked Blue Devils have only been able to land jabs.
The undefeated Blue Devils got 23 points from Carlos Boozer, 19 from Jason Williams and 15 from Mike Dunleavy in a 96-80 victory over Clemson, which turned the ball over 22 times.
However, Duke (6-0) was outrebounded 42-29 and allowed the Tigers to close the gap in the final minutes of their Atlantic Coast Conference opener, much to the dismay of coach Mike Krzyzewski.
"If you have high standards you want to play real well. I'm not going to be happy if we're not playing to that level and I don't think I should be," Krzyzewski said.
"We're going to get people who feel like it's their chance -- even more so than last year," he added. "We've got to learn how to handle that. We still haven't completely handled it yet."
Chris Duhon agreed that something is missing with the defending national champions.
"We're just not bringing energy and excitement to the game," said Duhon, who had 13 points, four assists and three steals. "Every game we have to come out knowing teams want to beat us. We don't want to learn by losing."
Duke improved to 72-9 in its last 81 ACC games and beat Clemson for the 12th straight time -- the last eight coming by double digits.
Chris Hobbs had a season-high 25 points to lead the Tigers (5-2), who have lost 24 of their last 25 ACC road games.
"Always a fun experience for a young team and I thought that we seemed to have a lot of fun, looking into the eyes of our players," Clemson coach Larry Shyatt said of playing Duke. "I thought they stood tall, and for a long period of time I thought we dominated the game in terms of aggression and glass.
"But in the end it was just too much talent for too long."
Hobbs couldn't do it alone against a team of stars as Duke extended the nation's longest winning streak to 16 games, the first 10 coming in last year's national title run.
The Tigers, with the biggest team in the ACC, played a good first half and trailed by just six at the break as their size gave the Blue Devils some trouble.
"The one thing they did tonight that they've done against everybody was rebound," Krzyzewski said of the bulky Tigers.
But Clemson's offense hit the skids in the early part of the second half as Duke cranked up the defensive heat and its running game.
Duke got layups from Dunleavy, Boozer, Dahntay Jones and Williams during a run to open the second half that put the game away with 13 minutes left.
The Blue Devils, struggling this season from the outside, didn't take their first 3-pointer of the half until Dunleavy made one with 12:52 left, but by then it was 65-48 as Clemson missed 11 of its first 12 shots and turned it over six times.
"For a 10-minute stretch there we played really good defense and that gave us a working margin," Krzyzewski said.
Clemson trailed by as many as 14 points in the first half after coughing the ball up eight times in a 4 1/2-minute span.
But the Tigers went on a 17-6 run to close within three as Edward Scott and Tony Stockman hit consecutive 3-pointers at the end of the spurt as the Blue Devils continued to struggle from the outside.
Duke came in shooting 29.5 percent from beyond the arc in five wins, and were just 4-of-15 in the opening 20 minutes as the Tigers stayed within six at the break.
Williams was the worst from 3-point range, missing all his attempts in the first half, as Duke finished 8-for-23 from beyond the arc.
North Carolina 83, Georgia Tech 77
Brian Morrison had six 3-pointers and a career-high 21 points as North Carolina avoided the worst start in its 92-year history with an 83-77 victory over Georgia Tech on Sunday night.
North Carolina (1-3), which started 0-3 for the first time since 1928, avoided losing five straight at home for the first time in school history.
Georgia Tech (3-4) went on a 10-3 run for a 75-69 lead in the Atlantic Coast Conference opener for both, but Jason Capel hit a 3-pointer -- his first after 10 straight misses -- and Melvin Scott banked in a 3 from the wing to tie it at 75 with 3:20 left.
Jackie Manuel hit two free throws to put North Carolina up 77-75, then Halston Lane tied it with a runner in the lane with 1:13 left.
Kris Lang and Melvin Scott each went 1-of-2 from the free throw line to put North Carolina up 79-77 with 18 seconds left. Manuel made it a four-point lead with a free throw after Jawad Williams tipped Scott's miss.
Scott sealed it with a three-point play with 5 seconds left.
No. 5 Maryland 61, Princeton 53
Lonny Baxter had 19 points and 12 rebounds as the Terrapins (5-1) rallied from a 12-point deficit to win in the first round of the BB&T Classic at the MCI Center.
Juan Dixon added 14 points for Maryland, which won its fifth straight and will play Connecticut in Monday night's championship game.
Andre Logan had 15 points for Princeton (1-4), which led 42-30 with 13:35 left in the second half, but Maryland went on a 14-2 run to tie the game. Drew Nicholas' 3-pointer with 4:43 remaining gave the Terrapins their first lead of the game, 53-51, and they never lost it.
No. 6 Florida 81, Tulane 65
Matt Bonner had 16 points and eight rebounds for the Gators (4-1), while Udonis Haslem, plagued by foul trouble in the first half, scored all 13 of his points in the second.
Marcus Kinzer had 13 points for visiting Tulane (4-1), which was off to its first 4-0 start since 1991.
Haslem scored nine straight points at the start of the second half to extend the Gators' lead to 17.
No. 12 Syracuse 91, Albany, N.Y., 65
Preston Shumpert hit eight 3-pointers and scored a career-high 37 points to lead the Orangemen (8-0), whose only deficit of the game was 2-0 after the Great Danes won the tip and Earv Opong hit a jumper. The visiting Orangemen went on an 18-0 run that lasted almost seven minutes to take a 24-4 lead.
E.J. Gallup, who entered the game among the nation's leaders with a 25.3 average, finished with 14 on 5-of-25 shooting for Albany (0-5).
Vanderbilt 80, No. 17 W. Kentucky 75
Brendan Plavich scored 13 points to lead five Vanderbilt players in double figures as the Commodores (4-2) won their third straight overall and 10th straight in this series.
The Hilltoppers (4-2) played for the first time without 7-foot-1 center Chris Marcus, who will miss 4-to-6 weeks with a stress fracture in his left ankle.
Vanderbilt played the game four miles from its home court, but didn't have any trouble playing at the Gaylord Entertainment Center despite a crowd nearly evenly split.
David Boyden had 17 points for Western Kentucky, which got within 76-75 with 53 seconds left, but Vanderbilt went 4-for-4 from the line over the final 23 seconds.