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DURHAM — Duke doesn't run any offensive plays designed for Brian Zoubek. Anything the 7-foot-1 senior center gets, he gets on his own.

He got plenty Saturday afternoon at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Zoubek scored 16 points and grabbed 17 rebounds — eight of them offensive — to help No. 8 Duke clobber Maryland 77-56 in Mike Krzyzewski's 1,000th game as the Blue Devils head coach.

Duke (21-4, 9-2 ACC) runs an offense built around its stars. The Big Three of Jon Scheyer (22 points), Nolan Smith (14) and Kyle Singler (10) are supposed to score. Those three average two-thirds of the Blue Devils' offense, and the last time out they scored 83 percent of Duke's points in a victory at North Carolina.

But they don't do it by themselves. They rely on role players who, well, play their roles.

"They talk about us three because we score," Scheyer said, "but, obviously, we have guys who do so many things. Zoobs, he's done a great job for us all year, and I'm happy for him that he had a breakout game. But his defense has been there the whole year. He's been there the whole year. It just took a big game like this for everybody to notice."

Zoubek started in place of 6-10 sophomore Miles Plumlee, and the senior brought energy from the get-go. He anchored a tenacious man-to-man defense that held Maryland (16-7, 6-3) to six points over the first 9:23.

By then, Duke had run off 15 unanswered points and led 20-6. By then, the score was Brian Zoubek 6, Maryland 6.

"I think it was a combination of things," Zoubek said. "Nothing against (Maryland), but how they play defense is they rush over on some of our shooters and it left the basket wide-open for me on the weak side. That, combined with me being a little more aggressive and being in good shape, it just came to me today."

Zoubek scored his first two baskets on methodical low-post moves. His next 12 came on rebounds of teammates' missed shots.

Zoubek's role — and the role of all Duke's big men — is to free up the Devils' three perimeter stars.

One sequence sums up Zoubek's big game. With Duke ahead by 20 early in the second half, Zoubek came out to the top of the key. He set a screen to free up one of the guards. Then he did it again. And again.

The instant Singler's 3-point shot went up, Zoubek rolled to his right and made a bee-line to the basket. When the ball bounced off the rim, he jumped, grabbed it with two hands and dunked in the offensive rebound.

"Brian was spectacular," Krzyzewski said. "He had 16 points and ... they were such uplifting buckets. He was even playing above the rim. No, really, he was above the rim a couple of times. ... He was kind of the difference there because we weren't hitting as well in other areas."

Zoubek routinely sets two, three and sometimes four screens to free up Duke's ball-handling guards. He puts his big body in the way of a defender, drawing contact over and over.

"Those screens, they're really important to what we do," Scheyer said. "Zoobs is such an easy guy to play with, really easy. He just makes everybody better on the court. He's a great teammate. He screens. He gets rebounds. He defends. He'll do anything he's asked."

On this day, in this game, he was asked to provide a spark. There were no plays drawn up for him. He did it on his own.

"I know I can have games like this, but I haven't been able to show it to anybody," Zoubek said. " ... Coach knows all the struggles I've been through here, with the injuries and how much I've had against me. He knows how much I've worked to try to fix that. I think this is the culmination of a lot of work."

Notes: In all, 103 former Blue Devils players, coaches and managers came back to Cameron Indoor Stadium for Krzyzewski's 1,000th game as Duke's coach. ... Lance Thomas, Duke's best low-post defender, started and played 26 minutes after suffering what was feared to be a serious knee injury Wednesday at Chapel Hill. It turned out to be a deep bruise. ... Duke's defense held player of the year candidate Greivis Vasquez to two points in the first half. Maryland's star senior finished with 17 points, seven rebounds and four assists. At one point he scored nine straight points to cut Duke's lead to 54-44, but the Terrapins got no closer. ... Vasquez shot 2-for-3 from 3-point range. The rest of the Terps were a combined 0-for-10. ... Duke's Nolan Smith scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half, and Scheyer finished 3-for-4 from 3-point range.

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

MARYLAND (16-7) — Milbourne 1-6 0-0 2, Williams 3-9 0-1 6, Hayes 3-7 2-2 8, Mosley 2-6 0-0 4, Vasquez 7-12 1-2 17, Bowie 1-4 0-0 2, Tucker 5-13 2-2 12, Gregory 0-3 3-4 3, Padgett 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 23-61 8-11 56.

DUKE (21-4) — Singler 4-14 0-0 10, Thomas 1-3 2-4 4, Zoubek 7-10 2-2 16, Smith 5-14 4-4 14, Scheyer 6-12 7-8 22, Ma.Plumlee 2-4 3-4 7, Dawkins 0-3 0-0 0, Mi.Plumlee 1-2 0-0 2, Kelly 1-2 0-0 2, Davidson 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 27-65 18-22 77.

Halftime—Duke 40-24.
3-point goals—Maryland 2-13 (Vasquez 2-3, Mosley 0-1, Bowie 0-1, Milbourne 0-2, Hayes 0-2, Tucker 0-4), Duke 5-15 (Scheyer 3-4, Singler 2-6, Dawkins 0-1, Kelly 0-1, Smith 0-3).
Fouled out—None.
Rebounds—Maryland 37 (Vasquez, Williams 7), Duke 44 (Zoubek 17).
Assists—Maryland 10 (Vasquez 4), Duke 12 (Smith 6).
Total fouls—Maryland 18, Duke 13.
A—9,314.