Duke Starts Season Off Strong, Beats N.C. Central 121-56

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Duke Starts Season Off Strong, Beats N.C. Central 121-56

By Jake Lloyd

Nov 10, 2007

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Durham, N.C. — In the weeks leading up to the start of the regular season, the Duke men's basketball team talked about how it was going to run more this year.

It wasn't completely believable, however, because the Blue Devils preached the same philosophy prior to last season and then often failed to play that style, although injuries had an effect.

On Friday night, the Blue Devils followed their words, running their neighbor North Carolina Central University out of Cameron Indoor Stadium with a 121-56 win to open the 2007-08 season.

The 121 points is the most Duke scored since a 126-point showing against Mercer on Dec. 21, 1997, and is tied for the sixth-highest total in Duke history. Last season, Duke didn't score more than 86 points.

"You can't really simulate that (playing against Duke) in practice," said NCCU junior Bryan Ayala, who finished with a team-high 18 points. "It's not something we're used to."

The 65-point margin of victory is tied for the fourth-largest in Duke history.

The game was NCCU's first at the Division I level after moving up from Division II, and the Eagles returned just one starter (Ayala) and lost 11 letter-winners from a year ago. The contest also was the teams' first regular season meeting. They played exhibitions the past three years, with Duke winning all three by an average of 42 points.

Duke didn't stop running until its last possession — when the shot clock had been turned off — with the final margin its largest of the game.

Freshman Taylor King led seven Blue Devils in double figures with 20 points on 7-for-9 shooting, including 5-for-7 from 3-point range. Fellow freshman Nolan Smith added 16 points and four assists, and freshman Kyle Singler and sophomore Gerald Henderson added 15 apiece, with Singler grabbing eight rebounds.

The seven Blue Devils in double figures tied for the second-highest total in Duke history. If sophomore forward Lance Thomas could have scored one more point (he finished with nine), Duke would have tied a school record with eight players in double figures — something that's been done three times.

Duke shot 56.5 percent from the field and assisted on 27 of its 39 field goals.

"Our depth is great and we have a lot of talented guys," said sophomore Jon Scheyer, who chipped in with 13 points, including three 3-pointers. "On any given night any person can be our leading scorer."

When told about the 121 points being the most in 11 years, Scheyer said, "That's awesome. I didn't even realize we scored that many. … We can put points up pretty quickly, and that's something we did at times tonight and we showed how explosive we can be."

Coach Mike Krzyzewski was impressed with his team's unselfishness, which was most evident on Duke's second possession of the game when three players passed up perimeter shots to give junior Greg Paulus a wide-open 3-pointer, which he swished.

"I liked the way we shared the ball tonight," Krzyzewski said. "For me, the best part of basketball is the pass, and that's the beauty of our game, the pass."

Duke's 27 assists is its most since it dished out 28 against N.C. A&T on Dec. 30, 2000.

Duke didn't stop pushing the ball in the first half until its final possession, when it ran 28 seconds off the clock before King connected on his third 3-pointer of the half to give the Blue Devils a 54-21 halftime advantage — their largest lead at that point.

King was Duke's first-half sharpshooter, connecting on 5-of-6 field goals — including 3-of-4 from behind the arc. Duke shot 48.8 percent from the field in the half.

After Ayala scored the Eagles' first two points to make the score 5-2, Duke scored six consecutive points to go up 11-2. The Eagles turned the ball over on four of their first six possessions and committed 14 miscues in the first half, which led to 15 Duke points.

Leading 11-4, Duke went on a 15-1 run, during which six Blue Devils scored, to take a 26-5 lead on a fastbreak finish by Thomas with 12:40 remaining in the half.

The Eagles slowed down the Blue Devils momentarily, outscoring them 8-7 to make the score 33-13, but King and Smith knocked down 3-pointers to increase the lead to 39-13.

No Blue Devil stood above the others, as nine players played 16-plus minutes, and junior Martynas Pocius would have played more than his 12 minutes if he hadn't sustained a bloody nose in the final minutes. Scheyer's 24 minutes were the most by any player.

As a result, fatigue wasn't an issue, as evidenced by Duke's harried style from start to finish.

"It's a lot of fun," Smith said. "That's what we conditioned for all summer long and all pre-season. We want to run teams into the ground.

"We have a lot of great players. We're going to stay fresh all year hopefully."

Still, just to make sure everyone stays in shape, Krzyzewski had his team partake in a 15-minute cardio workout after the game.

Singler best personified Duke's new style of play. Not once, but twice the 6-foot-8 forward took off from Duke's side of the court, dribbling all the way to the basket for transition layups. There was no hesitation on his part. Just the desire to reach the basket.

After watching his three freshmen lead the team in scoring, Krzyzewski said the obvious.

"The three are really ready to play at this level. They can be good players right now."

Duke finished with 23 fastbreak points and scored 36 points off 26 Eagles turnovers.

The Blue Devils opened the second half with 10 straight points, highlighted by two 3-pointers by Henderson, to claim a 64-21 lead. Henderson then sent the sellout crowd of 9,314 — Duke's 259th consecutive sellout — into a frenzy by elevating to throw down an alley-oop pass from Paulus.

As good as Duke was from 3-point range, where it made 16-of-28 attempts (57.1 percent), it also got to the free-throw line frequently, making 27-of-32 attempts (84.4 percent). The Blue Devils' aggressively attacked the basket, getting in the bonus in the second half with 13:13 to play.

Duke took its first 50-point lead at 93-43 with 7:48 remaining on two free throws by Scheyer, and continued to attack the rest of the way, outscoring NCCU 28-13 until the final buzzer sounded.

"One of the main things for us is playing 40 minutes every game, no matter what the score is, no matter who we're playing," Scheyer said, "and I think we did a good job of that tonight.

"That can definitely be better, but that's a main point of ours that we're trying to work on this year."

Senior DeMarcus Nelson and Pocius scored 10 points, with Nelson adding eight rebounds.

Charles Futrell scored 17 points and grabbed six rebounds for the Eagles, who will get no rest as the season progresses, with games scheduled against Florida, Rutgers, Wake Forest and Davidson just in November.

"We've got a long road ahead of us," NCCU coach Henry Dickerson said. "All we can do is get better."

The Eagles shot 21-for-60 (35 percent) from the field and were 6-for-18 (33.3 percent) from 3-point range.

A lot was made entering the season about last year's student attendance inside Cameron, when several empty seats were evident in the corners of the student section at many games.

That wasn't an issue Friday night. An hour and a half before tip-off, hundreds of students surrounded the stadium, waiting to pick up their tickets, and once the game began, the only empty seats — which were few and far between — were in the upper section well above the students.

Duke should get its first real test of the young season Monday when it hosts New Mexico State, which is predicted to win the Western Athletic Conference.

"We're playing a team Monday night that's very athletic and big and won 25 games last year and is picked to win their conference," Krzyzewski said. "After that game, I'll tell you a little bit more (about Duke)."

Most Recent Comments

Can you say "Freshman Class" I stated a few weeks ago we were going to run other teams to death. The fast pace tempo is back. Great first win. Looking forward to Monday night. GO DEVILS!!!!

joefly and dueceEduece, quit being typical carolina jerks. duke won by 50 against a team they were supposed to beat, what's your point? nobody's "letting their emotions get away", but it is nice to see duke run up and down the court with some athletes this year.

Hey Dukies, don't let your emotions get away from you. You beat a D-II team, just as Carolina did last night. I know, Central is D-I now. But the first year or two, the team is still a D-II team. Carolina and State will bring you back down to earth in a couple of months.

Does anyone know who the starting 5 were?

GO DUKE!! hey dueceEduece, its a regular season game, no matter the opponent, Duke should play them the same. Your team of choice would do no less! Jealousy will get you nowhere bro... and as the great Jim Rome would say.... GOODNIGHT NOW!!!!!

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