NC State
Duke
No. 2 Duke Drills NC State, 76-57
1/15/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 15, 2004
By Tony Haynes
Durham, N.C.--NC State's annual trip to Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium on Thursday night produced a very familiar storyline. Often frustrated and overwhelmed by the Blue Devils' non-stop defensive pressure, the Wolfpack turned the ball over 20 times and left Durham with a 76-57 loss. Duke, which earned its 10th consecutive win, was led by sophomore guard J.J. Redick, who scored 20 points on a 6-of-8 shooting touch. Daniel Ewing added 18, Luol Deng 11 and Sheldon Williams 10 as the Blue Devils improved to 13-1 overall and 3-0 in the ACC.
The Duke win gave coach Mike Krzyzewski his 300th career triumph at Cameron and prevented the Pack's Herb Sendek from reaching the 200-win milestone for his career.
"I think we all watched a sensational performance by Duke," Sendek said. "They played like a team that could win the national championship tonight. Their defensive pressure was typically outstanding. On offense, I thought they were really in synch. As for us, certainly we didn't feel like we played as well as we needed to or could. The number that jumps out off the stat sheet is 20 turnovers. We've been making great progress in that area, but obviously the pressure we faced tonight was at another level and we didn't respond the way we would have needed to in order to fare better."
In posting back-to-back wins over Brigham Young and Florida State last week, NC State (9-3, 2-1) had turned the ball over just seven times in each game. But against Duke, it was a different story.
But if it's any consolation, the Wolfpack was just another in a long line of victims who have been buried by the Blue Devils in recent weeks. Prior to Thursday's game, Duke had pounded its previous nine opponents by an average of 27 points per game.
"Overall our defense was very good," Krzyzewski said. "We didn't give them that many open 3s until late. I think they had only one or two until the last few minutes. I think that's one of the keys to having a chance to beat them."
Other than freshman Engin Atsur, who paced the Pack with a career-high 14 points, no one for NC State could find a hot hand. Atsur was 2-2 from 3-point range, while the rest of the team finished an icy 2-for-14 from the arc.
As they have done so many times in games at home, Duke took control early with one of their patented runs. Following a layup by NC State forward Ilian Evtimov that tied the game 11-11 with 16:54 remaining in the opening half, the Blue Devils were off and running on a 21-6 blitz when Ewing nailed two 3s followed by another from Redick.
Duke's scoring spree was certainly aided by NC State's inefficiency on the offensive end. When it wasn't turning the ball over, the Wolfpack was taking rushed shots that often led to transition opportunities for the explosive Blue Devils.
"I thought we were too impatient in the first half," Sendek said. "We took shots that we didn't have to take. Compounded with the turnovers, it put us in a hole. We thought we had to make a play on one or two passes. We thought we had to hit a home run within the first two passes of the possession. We just didn't exercise nearly enough patience."
And no one fell into that trap more often than Julius Hodge. The ACC's leading scorer coming in, the 6-7 junior suffered through one of the worst nights of his career, making just 3-of-9 shots for seven points. Hodge also had seven turnovers before fouling out with 4:31 remaining.
"Me personally, I know I didn't play my best," said Hodge, whose streak of 16 consecutive games scoring in double figures came to an end. "I'm just going to keep my head up and keep playing hard because nobody is going to take away my pride."
Duke guard Chris Duhon may not have taken away Hodge's pride, but he certainly took him out of his game by exerting a tremendous amount of pressure on Hodge every time he had the ball in his hands.
"Julius was trying to make things happen," Sendek said. "It didn't go in our favor tonight with that, but that's the nature of the way Julius plays - he does make things happen for us."
But not on Thursday. Then again, he wasn't alone. In scoring just seven points, NC State's second leading scorer, Marcus Melvin, was only 1-for-3 from the floor. By the time the dust had settled in the first half, Duke was up 42-35 at the break and well on its way to its 35th straight win at Cameron. And any hopes NC State had of making a move early in the second half were quickly dashed when Redick nailed a jumper from 2-point range before coming back with one of his four 3-point bombs to make it 47-25 with 18:58 left. The final margin of 19 was as close as the Wolfpack would get the rest of the way.
"Duhon's been a great player for us all year," Krzyzewski said. "His defense and his leadership out on the court really makes everybody go. Our perimeter played extremely well. J.J. and Daniel were working very hard coming off screens and getting good shots. They had extremely efficient games, both of them."
Duke hit 27-of-53 from the field for 50.9 percent and was 8-of-14 from 3-point range. The Blue Devils also won the battle of the boards 31-24.
