CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Down by 12 points at halftime of Wednesday night’s game against Miami, Duke seemed destined for another road loss.
The No. 6 Blue Devils were struggling to get the ball inside against the Hurricanes’ 2-3 zone defense and settled for 3-pointers as a result, just like they did the last time they suffered a defeat away from Cameron Indoor Stadium against Georgetown.
But this time, Duke found a way to turn the game around before the deficit became unmanageable—largely because of the Blue Devils’ refusal to settle for sloppy play.
“Everybody was mad,” senior center Brian Zoubek said of the atmosphere in the locker room at halftime. “Nobody was playing well. We weren’t playing together and it was just frustrating out there. We knew we had to do pretty much everything different in the second half.”
Head coach Mike Krzyzewski gave his players an ultimatum as they headed back onto the court—winning the game, he said, was up to them. Junior Kyle Singler was the first Blue Devil to answer the call.
He was the image of physical toughness on the floor, sporting a massive black eye he suffered during a scramble for the ball in practice earlier this week. Yet more importantly, he displayed his mental toughness out of the locker room by turning his anger into poise on the offensive end.
Singler scored nine straight points for Duke to open the second half, providing the initial boost for a 22-5 run that ultimately gave the Blue Devils a five-point lead they would never relinquish. He started off his second-half tear with a 3-pointer and followed that up with two layups, one coming off a tip-in and the other the result of a strong drive to the hoop through the Hurricane defense.
Duke still trailed by five points after his initial scoring spurt, but Singler’s next basket showed that the Blue Devils had begun to find ways to break down the defense that gave them so much trouble in the first period.
After a pair of successful Miami foul shots, Zoubek received the ball around the foul line and found Singler wide open under the basket after the preseason All-American used a backdoor cut to blow by his man. He finished with an emphatic two-handed slam, trimming the Miami lead back down to five points within the first 2:30 of the second half.
Duke’s movement away from the ball allowed penetration of the zone that was sorely lacking before halftime. This new approach forced the Hurricanes to collapse under the basket rather than pressure the Blue Devil guards on the 3-point line. Consequently, the perimeter opened up for Duke and the team knocked down 9-of-15 shots from beyond the arc in the second half.
“The focus was just hitting people and cutting and just trying to get them to move in their defense,” Singler said. “Hopefully they would lose us and we were still going to shoot our threes. So it was just a matter of passing the ball and cutting.”
However, Singler’s offensive contributions would not have been possible without the stops Duke generated on the other end. Miami mustered only five points over the first eight minutes of the period, and the Hurricanes turned the ball over six times in that stretch.
Moreover, they coughed it up on three of their first four trips up the court, thanks in part to the active hands of Zoubek. The big man took the ball from guards James Dews and Garrius Adams on back-to-back possessions, finishing the contest with a career-high five steals and setting the tone for a stifling defensive effort the rest of the way.
Junior Nolan Smith also played tougher defense on guard Durand Scott, a freshman who torched the Blue Devils for 11 points in the first half on 5-of-7 shooting.
“None of our guys played very well defensively in the first half, and Scott really was in control of the game,” Krzyzewski said. “In the second half, Nolan played the type of defense he’s played all year. That hurt them because [Scott] was having such a great game. He still played well, but he wasn’t able to influence it as much as he did in the first half.”
When the dust settled after Duke’s torrid run, the Blue Devils led 47-42—and the Hurricanes never found a way to get back on top. Offensive adjustments and defensive intensity may have facilitated the turnaround, but for the most experienced Blue Devils, the comeback was simply an issue of pride.
“Coach of course got in us, let us know that we weren’t playing up to the capabilities that we’d been playing to all year,” Smith said. “As veterans, Jon, Kyle, Lance, myself, Zoubs—we went out there and said we’re going to win this game.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.