Duke watched as Jimmy Baron turned the second half into his personal shootaround. Finally, the Blue Devils put their best player in his face — just in time to save their long home-court winning streak.
Kyle Singler hit two free throws with 19.4 secs left, then stopped Rhode Island's top scorer down the stretch to lead #5 Duke past the Rams 82-79 on Sunday.
Jon Scheyer scored 23 points and was 13-of-13 from the free-throw line, and Singler finished with 21 points for the Blue Devils (3-0). They fell behind by 12 early and trailed for most of the way before scoring on their final seven possessions to rally for their NCAA-best 62nd straight non-conf victory at Cameron Indoor.
"It was one of those February games in November," Duke coach Krzyzewski said. "The last 5 minutes, I thought we did everything right. ... And they didn't do anything wrong. They just missed a couple of shots."
Baron scored 21 of his 24 points in the second half and matched a career high with eight 3's for Rhode Island (1-1).
"(Duke) put every guy possible on him," the Rhode Island coach said of his son. "They were switching, changing defenses on him. He just stepped up and kept us ahead."
Delroy James added a career-high 21 points and Keith Cothran added 10 points.
Nolan Smith and Lance Thomas finished with 10 points apiece for Duke, which won its first two games by an average of 37 points. Maybe the Blue Devils should have expected a tighter contest from the Rams — both previous meetings between the schools came in the NCAA tournament and each was decided by one point.
The Rams made 7-of-9 3-pointers in the second half and finished shooting nearly 55 percent, but were denied their first victory against a ranked team since 1998 and their first win against an ACC team since 1987.
"I don't think our guys expected the level of play," Krzyzewski said. "Don't get me wrong. We respected Rhode Island. But they played at a really high level tonight. I thought it knocked us back."
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