ATLANTA - When Jon Scheyer climbed the short ladder to cut down the nets in the Georgia Dome Sunday, he was nervous, he admitted afterward. Never before had he celebrated a postseason title in a Duke uniform, and the last time he had clipped the twine was in high school.
It might have been the first time all day that Scheyer wasn't sure of himself.
The junior guard earned Tournament MVP honors as the third-seeded Blue Devils beat No. 4 Florida State 79-69 to win their first ACC Tournament since 2006. Scheyer, Gerald Henderson and Kyle Singler combined for 70 of Duke's 79 points, and all three were named to the Tournament's first team.
Duke's three stars carried the Blue Devils (28-6) throughout the weekend, scoring 80 percent of the team's points and converting on clutch possessions in all three games. Not surprisingly, it was the three players, all clad in ACC championship T-shirts and hats, who earned the loudest ovations when they used the small pair of metallic scissors to take a memento from the arena.
It was, after all, the team's first postseason title in three years, and it wouldn't have been possible without them.
"It's a long time coming," said Henderson, who scored 27 points in the final, second only to Scheyer's 29. "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."
And Duke wasted no time seizing control of the first title game for most of this team's players. The Blue Devils raced out to a 29-14 lead with 6:16 left in the first half, with all 29 points coming from Henderson, Scheyer and Singler. The Seminoles (25-9) struggled to get clean looks in the face of Duke's swarming and switching man-to-man defense, but the early surge was as much about offensive efficiency as it was defensive prowess.
The Blue Devils made seven of their first 10 3-pointers on their way to finishing 12-of-25 for the day, with all 12 coming from Henderson, Scheyer and Singler. In the first half, Singler canned 3-pointers on three straight possessions, Henderson shook off two poor shooting nights to start 4-for-4 from the floor and Scheyer capped a 17-3 run with a 3-pointer that prompted Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton to call a full timeout.
The Duke lead, once 12-11, had ballooned to 29-14 in just under six minutes.
With the cock of a wrist, the Blue Devils-or, more specifically, three of them-turned a slow, back-and-forth affair into a rout-in-the-making.
"The story of the game was Scheyer, Henderson and Singler," Hamilton said. "They carried the load. They were much more effective against us.... You run into a team sometimes that has a hot streak going like that, and unfortunately for us, today that was Duke."
It wasn't the only run Duke would make. Once again, the three-person nucleus triggered an outburst, this time in the second half, that secured the Tournament crown.
Trailing 35-21 at halftime, Florida State mounted its comeback early in the second half, cutting the lead to 42-36 at the 12:07 mark. Toney Douglas, who scored 28 points and Mike Krzyzewski called his "favorite non-Duke player in the country," notched the Seminoles' first seven points of the half, and when only Henderson could hit his jumpers, Duke's title was no longer a guarantee.
Until, that is, Scheyer, Henderson and Singler took over again. Coming out of a full timeout, Scheyer nailed a 3-pointer to increase Duke's lead to nine. On the next possession, after a Chris Singleton tip cut the edge to seven, Scheyer attempted a three from the corner, drew a hand-check foul and swished all three free throws. Nolan Smith hit a short jumper to push the advantage to 12 again. If the Seminoles had loosened Duke's grip on the momentum, the Blue Devils were grabbing it right back.
"Kyle started us off, then Gerald was hitting, so I figured I would take a shot at it," Scheyer said. "It was a really fun stretch there."
Smith may have gotten in on that run, but the focus soon shifted back to Duke's potent trio.
Henderson sank a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give the Blue Devils a 13-point lead. Then, he snaked through the defense and flushed home a slam dunk. After two more Henderson free throws, Scheyer sliced through the lane, elevated for a layup and waited until the last split-second before his feet hit the ground to spin a lefty layup. The ball hung on the rim and dropped as the Duke faithful erupted.
Missing out on the fun, Singler delivered the knockout punch on the next possession. The Blue Devils rotated the ball around the perimeter and Henderson found the wide-open sophomore to the right of the top of the key. He took a breath, set his feet and dropped the 3-pointer to give Duke a 19-point lead.
Backpedaling across midcourt before Hamilton called another full timeout, Henderson let his arms levitate upward and flashed a brimming smile for everyone to see. But that wasn't the sight of the moment: The image belonged to Singler, holding his follow-through, pointing his wrist to the ceiling of the dome-where, in Cameron Indoor Stadium, this squad's first banner will soon hang.
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