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ATLANTA — There are winners, and then there are champions.

Count this Duke team among the champions.

Led by the perimeter shooting of its big three, third-seeded Duke defeated fourth-seeded Florida State 79-69 to win the ACC tournament championship Sunday afternoon at the Georgia Dome. It’s the 17th ACC title for the Blue Devils, and their eighth in the last 12 years.

But it was the first for the two juniors and the sophomore who lead this team.

Tournament MVP Jon Scheyer scored 29 points, shooting 13-for-15 from the foul line to set an ACC final record. Gerald Henderson scored 27 points and dished out four assists. And sophomore Kyle Singler played all 40 minutes for the third time in three tournament games, scoring 14 points and hitting perhaps the biggest shots of the game.

“I told the kids last night, 'There are a lot of winners, and there are a few champions,’ ” Krzyzewski said. “They’re winners. They were winners when they were freshmen. They were never losers. These guys have never been losers. But now they’re champions. And that’s a cool thing. That’s a really cool thing.”

Each of Duke’s big three came up big from 3-point range. Scheyer, Henderson and Singler hit four 3-pointers apiece as the Blue Devils (28-6) solved the defensive problems presented by Florida State (25-9).

The shot-blocking Seminoles and their big front line — 7-foot-1 center Solomon Alabi and 6-9 forwards Uche Echefu and Chris Singleton — led the ACC in field-goal percentage defense.

So Duke simply shot over the top of the defense.

The Blue Devils finished 12-for-25 from 3-point range. And in a decisive 20-3 scoring run in the first half, Duke’s big three scored all 20 points and all on jump shots.

“The story of the game was Scheyer, Henderson and Singler,” Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton said. “They carried the load. They were much more effective against us. Those 3s in the first half came in bunches.”

With Duke trailing 11-9, Henderson hit a 3-pointer with 13:04 left in the first half to start the 20-3 run. He followed it with a foul-line jumper.

Then it was Singler’s turn. Three straight possessions. Three straight 3-pointers, two from the corners and one from the top of the key.

Singleton sank a 3-pointer for Florida State, but Henderson and Scheyer hit back-to-back 3-pointers to make it 29-14. Of Duke’s first 29 points, two came on Scheyer foul shots, two on Singler’s wide-open transition layup after a Scheyer steal — and the rest on jump shots from the perimeter.

“We lost to a team that came out extremely hot, on fire,” Hamilton said. “… Every once in a while you run into a team that’s shooting that well from the perimeter, even though there were several times I thought we did a very good job of contesting shots. Great players make great plays.”

The crucial run lasted a little less than six minutes. Duke shot 7-for-9 during that stretch, 6-for-8 from behind the 3-point stripe. Florida State was 1-for-6 with three turnovers.

It was over. From that point on, it was simply a waiting game until the ceremony for Duke’s players to cut down the nets.

Even though the Seminoles’ Toney Douglas scored 19 points after halftime to finish with 28, even when his pass led to a layup that cut it to 42-36, Duke had all the answers.

Scheyer hit a 3-pointer — what else? — to start an 11-4 run. Duke led by as many as 22, and scored 12 of its final 14 points from the free-throw line to close out a championship.

“It’s a long time in coming,” Henderson said. “We’ve put a lot of work into building our team into what it is today. Winning this championship is an accomplishment, because we’ve waited a long time for it. It feels good.”

NOTES: Scheyer edged Singler by one vote for tournament MVP honors. … Singler, Henderson, Douglas and North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough rounded out the all-tournament team. … The four-day event drew 158,112 fans, the second-most in tournament history. The record (182,525) was set at the Georgia Dome in 2001. … In three tournament games, Duke shot 30-for-67 (45 percent) from 3-point range. … Duke has played in the ACC tournament championship game 28 times. … Florida State reached the final for the first time, and Hamilton was trying to become the first African-American coach to win an ACC tournament championship. This is the fifth straight year an African-American coach took a team to the final and lost. Hamilton followed Georgia Tech’s Paul Hewitt (2005), Boston College’s Al Skinner (2006), N.C. State’s Sidney Lowe (2007) and Clemson’s Oliver Purnell (2008).

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com