Sunday, January 20, 2008

Nelson and Company Drive Over Clemson, 93-80


The #5 Blue Devils overcame their decided size disadvantage with quickness, using 24 points from DeMarcus Nelson to beat Clemson 93-80 Saturday night for their 22nd straight win in the series.

"They just owned the boards," Krzyzewski said. "We were dominating the other part of the court, and they were dominating [the low post], ... Our defense saved us."

Kyle Singler added 17 points and helped key the game-breaking run for the Blue Devils (15-1, 3-0 ACC). They blew a 12-point first-half lead, regrouped and eventually ran away from the #23 Tigers.

"It took us the whole game to really wear them down," Nelson said.

Gerald Henderson had 16 points, Nolan Smith scored 13 and Jon Scheyer finished with 12 for Duke, which turned up the defensive pressure and rode some hot shooting to its fifth straight win.

"Our game plan was to try to force them into a lot of turnovers, try to press them and trap them in different areas and try to trap them in the post a little bit," Nelson said. "They never went away."

Clemson held a 42-26 rebounding advantage, but the Tigers turned it over 21 times -- 5.5 more than their average. Duke turned those miscues into 37 points and shot 53.4 percent, knocking down 10 of 11 shots in one early stretch.

The third conference win puts Duke solidly in first place in the ACC as the only remaining undefeated team in the conference.

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