NC State
Duke
Wolfpack Drops One To Duke, 76-57
1/13/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan 13, 2002
By Tony Haynes
Raleigh, N.C.--Now NC State knows how Arizona must have felt in last year's national title game when, within a blink of an eye, Mike Dunleavy virtually clinched Duke's third NCAA Championship by nailing three consecutive three-point baskets in less than a minute.
On Sunday night before a sell-out throng of 19,722 at the ESA, Dunleavy worked his magic again. But this time, he did all of his damage in the first half, scoring 22 of his game-high 27 points as Duke's top-ranked Blue Devils whipped NC State, 76-57.
Aided by its most vocal crowd of the year, NC State (12-4, 2-2) was going toe-to-toe with the mighty Blue Devils over the first 10 minutes of the opening half. But that's when the Pack would go into a woeful scoring drought that would ultimately decide the outcome. After an Ilian Evtimov layup brought NC State within three points at 22-19 with 9:57 remaining, the Wolfpack would go more than nine minutes without scoring.
The dry spell allowed Duke (14-1, 3-1) to gain total control with a 17-0 run that was spearheaded by Dunleavy. The 6-10 junior started his blitz by knocking down a two-point jumper to give Duke a 32-19 advantage with 4:09 remaining. On the Blue Devils' next possession, Dunleavy hit a 15-footer. Then came three consecutive three-point bombs on successive possessions to give Duke a commanding 45-21 advantage at halftime. By the time the dust had cleared, Dunleavy had scored 15 consecutive points over the last four-plus minutes to put his team in the driver's seat.
"For the 22 years I've been at Duke, his performance is as good as I've seen," said Blue Devils' coach Mike Krzyzewski. "He got his 22 first half points against a top defensive team, it's not like he was going against a zone. He also was able to distribute the ball and didn't force shots."
Dunleavy's explosion combined with NC State's offensive power outage over the last 10 minutes of the opening half were simply too much for the Wolfpack to overcome. Though the Pack continued to play extremely hard in the second half, it never got closer than the final deficit of 19 points.
"We really let it slip away there going into halftime," said NC State head coach Herb Sendek. "I thought Duke got a remarkable performance from Mike Dunleavy. He had 22 at the half and really made some deep long shots, some of them contested, and really opened things up for them."
Many of Dunleavy's shot's came off of Duke's patented pick and roll actions, where Dunleavy would set a high ball screen for guard Jason Williams and simply step back beyond the three-point line to receive a pass from Williams, who was being double-teamed. But Krzyzewski and his staff also added a new wrinkle for this game by putting Dunleavy and center Carlos Boozer side-by-side for a series of double ball screens. The new look was both unexpected and effective.
"We had not previously seen that," Sendek said. "We had to make an adjustment at halftime. I don't think they hurt us with that in the second half but that certainly was instrumental in their first half getaway."
NC State played Duke to a standoff in a second half that included three thunderous slam-dunks by freshman center Josh Powell, who scored 10 of his 12 points in the second stanza. Guards Cliff Crawford and Scooter Sherrill finished with 10 apiece for the Pack, which hit 39 percent of its shots for the game.
Staying with the pick and roll over the final 20-minutes, Duke went inside to Boozer, who responded with 15 second half points to finish with 22 for the game. Williams, who came in as the ACC's leading scorer with an average of more than 21 points per game, was held to just 10 on a four of 14 shooting night. But NC State's extra emphasis on trapping him off the high ball screens allowed Dunleavy and Boozer to get more scoring opportunities, and gave Williams a chance to pile up 11 assists.
"In preparing for Duke, they're a big ball screen team and you have to deal with Jason Williams coming off those screens," said Wolfpack guard Archie Miller, who had eight points off the bench. "He's their big gun, but as they proved tonight they have plenty of firepower over there that gives them a chance to do plenty of damage, regardless of how he's playing."
The first 10 minutes of the game featured some of the most intense basketball ever seen in the three-year history of the Entertainment and Sports Arena. After Duke jumped out a quick 5-0 lead, the Pack answered with a 7-0 run to go up 7-5. But the Wolfpack's last lead at 9-7 would come as the result of a driving layup by Crawford. Little did anyone know that Dunleavy was just beginning to warm up his engines when his two free throws at the 16:31 mark of the opening half would give the Blue Devils a lead that would not relinquish the rest of the night.
"I felt we would play hard, but I was knocked back personally by how hard NC State played," Krzyzewski said. "They played really hard. They are good and I respect them."
For the night, Duke hit 28-60 shots for 46.7 percent and forced 19 NC State turnovers.
