Duke Dominates VT by 25 to Begin ACC Play

It takes a lot to please Coach K, but there might be only one way for #5 Duke to top the dominance of its defense after halftime against Virginia Tech.

"Probably (allowing) single digits, he would have been really happy," guard Jon Scheyer quipped.

Coach K will just have to settle for allowing 13 points in the second half of his team's 69-44 rout of the Hokies to open ACC play.

Kyle Singler scored 19 pts and keyed Duke's decisive late burst. Gerald Henderson added 15, Nolan Smith had 13 and Jon Scheyer finished with 11 for the Blue Devils (12-1, 1-0 ACC).

"We want to have that be our staple — we want to bring defense and rebounding to every game," Singler said. "We know we can rebound the ball and play defense. If we do that, we'll have a good enough chance to win as many games as we want to."

They did it this time with a punishing defensive performance in the second half, when they held the Hokies to 6-for-18 shooting and out-rebounded them 22-10. Duke also outscored VT 30-9 over the final 17 minutes of the game.

"Our defense the last 17½ minutes was outstanding — we're talking, switching, guys were rebounding," said Krzyzewski, calling it his team's best defensive half of the season.

Malcolm Delaney scored 12 to lead Virginia Tech (9-5, 0-1). Leading scorer A.D. Vassallo was held to 7 — 12 below his average. Those two and Jeff Allen were a combined 2-for-8 in the final 20 minutes.

"No one's stopping them from getting shots except the guys in the white shirts," VT coach Seth Greenberg said.

The Hokies shot 36.7% and committed 18 turnovers in losing its 8th straight game against AP Top 25 teams.

Singler finished 7-of-11 from the field and almost single-handedly made sure the Blue Devils wouldn't need any Sean Dockery-like heroics to take care of the Hokies this time, scoring 9 and dishing out two no-look passes that led to layups during the game-breaking run that put Duke up by 20 pts to stay.

On a side note, cross town rival UNC got dealt a beat down by unranked BC in their first conference game. A fitting welcome to ACC play by the once #1 fluff team in the country. As usual they start each year undefeated during their perennial cupcake schedule, and will follow up this devastating defeat by tackling a tough and gritty foe in Charleston, SC. Wow, way to man up! Dont hurt yourself there roy 'choke' williams.. Hey! See if you can knock off a few community colleges and church teams on your way back up, eh?