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SPORTS

Duke's defense turns Princeton into paupers

Monday, November 15, 2010
(Updated 5:34 am)

DURHAM -- The Princeton offense was no match for top-ranked Duke's up-tempo defense.

Nolan Smith scored 22 points and the Blue Devils forced 27 turnovers in a season-opening 97-60 rout of the Tigers on Sunday in the CBE Classic.

Kyrie Irving, the first freshman to start a season as Duke's point guard since Jason Williams in 1999, had 17 points. Kyle Singler added 16 and helped the Blue Devils shoot 55 percent and makes 14 threes.

Opening a season as the top-ranked team for the seventh time, Duke never trailed and broke it open by outscoring the Tigers 24-11 during the first 8 minutes of the second half. The reigning national champions also did it with defense, turning all those turnovers into 36 points.

"We definitely played the defense we wanted to play," Smith said. "Against a team like that, with guys that can really shoot threes, we played the defense we wanted to play tonight."

Dan Mavraides scored 16 points to lead the Tigers (1-1), who outrebounded the Blue Devils 31-29 but never got closer than 11 points in the second half and fell to 1-18 in the series.

"We threw the ball away a little bit too much," Tigers coach Sydney Johnson said. "When you give a great team like this extra opportunities ... they shot the lights out."

Mike Krzyzewski moved four victories shy of 800 at Duke and improved to 30-1 in home openers at the school. The Blue Devils pushed their decade-long non-conference winning streak at Cameron to 78 games and won their 43rd straight home game against unranked opponents.

This one initially figured to provide an interesting contrast between the Blue Devils' newly installed, high-energy defense and the patient, backdoor-cutting offense that has been the Tigers' signature. But Duke's pressure routinely frustrated Princeton, preventing the Tigers from working the ball to their center and created 17 turnovers in the first half. Despite that, the Blue Devils led just 34-28 in the final 1½ minutes before the break.

Duke scored the final eight points of the half on 3-pointers roughly 20 seconds apart from Smith and Singler, and that pushed the lead into double figures to stay.

"We had too much energy on the offensive end in the first half. We just wanted it so badly that I think we screwed up about five fast breaks," Krzyzewski said. "... In the second half, we combined energy and poise."

And that led to the big run.

"They like to play their two guards 40 minutes, if possible, (so) we just tried to put the pressure on them, make them work on the defensive end and on the offensive end," said Liberty transfer Seth Curry, who scored 14 points in his Duke debut.

Andre Dawkins added 11 points for the Blue Devils, who hit 20 of 30 shots in the second half.

Ian Hummer added 14 points for Princeton, which was playing its first game against a reigning national champion since the Tigers' memorable upset of UCLA in the 1996 NCAA tournament. Johnson was a guard on that team.

"I don't know how many teams are going to be able to play with Duke," Johnson said. "There might be 10 teams in the country that can handle all the things that they throw at you. So, good luck to those guys, because Duke's pretty good."

 

PRINCETON (1-1)

FG FT Reb

Min M-A M-A O-T A PF PT

Maddox 31 1-5 4-6 1-4 6 3 6

Hummer 33 5-11 4-8 1-7 1 2 14

Connolly 18 2-4 0-0 3-4 2 3 4

Davis 22 2-7 0-0 0-2 0 1 4

Mavraides 33 6-8 0-0 0-1 0 1 16

Sherburne 3 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Bray 19 2-4 0-0 0-3 2 2 5

Foley 1 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 3

Hazel 3 0-1 0-0 0-1 0 0 0

Clement 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Comfort 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0

Saunders 8 1-2 0-0 0-1 1 1 2

Barrett 4 0-1 0-0 0-1 0 2 0

Darrow 22 3-5 0-1 2-2 1 0 6

Edwards 1 0-0 0-4 0-0 0 0 0

Totals 200 23-50 8-19 11-31 14 15 60

Percentages: FG .460, FT .421.

3-point goals: 6-16, .375 (Mavraides 4-5, Foley 1-1, Bray 1-2, Hazel 0-1, Barrett 0-1, Darrow 0-1, Maddox 0-2, Davis 0-3).

Team rebounds: 5.

Blocked shots: 3 (Maddox, Darrow, Barrett).

Turnovers: 27 (Maddox 7, Mavraides 5, Bray 4, Connolly 3, Davis 3, Hummer 2, Hazel, Saunders, Barrett).

Steals: 7 (Maddox 3, Edwards 2, Connolly, Davis).

Technical fouls: None.

 

DUKE (1-0)

FG FT Reb

Min M-A M-A O-T A PF PT

Ma Plumlee 20 2-4 1-1 1-4 4 3 5

Singler 26 7-10 0-0 2-4 2 4 16

Mi Plumlee 17 1-2 0-0 0-2 1 3 2

Irving 25 4-10 6-6 1-4 9 1 17

Smith 30 10-15 0-0 0-4 6 0 22

Thornton 9 1-1 0-0 0-1 2 0 2

Hairston 13 1-1 0-0 1-2 0 2 2

Dawkins 22 5-9 0-0 0-0 1 1 13

Curry 24 4-10 3-3 2-3 1 2 14

Kelly 14 1-3 1-2 0-3 0 1 4

Totals 200 36-65 11-12 9-29 26 17 97

Percentages: FG .554, FT .917.

3-point goals: 14-26, .538 (Curry 3-5, Irving 3-6, Dawkins 3-6, Singler 2-3, Smith 2-5, Kelly 1-1).

Team rebounds: 2.

Blocked Shots: 5 (Singler 2, Ma. Plumlee 2, Irving).

Turnovers: 14 (Smith 4, Mi. Plumlee 3, Kelly 2, Ma. Plumlee 2, Dawkins, Irving, Curry).

Steals: 10 (Irving 2, Smith 2, Thornton 2, Singler 2, Hairston, Curry).

Technical fouls: None.

Princeton 28 32 -- 60

Duke 42 55 -- 97

A--9,314. Officials--Bryan Kersey, Tim Kelly, Ron Tyburski.

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