The men's basketball team, powered by Shavlik Randolph, trampled the over-matched Army Black Knights Saturday, beating them 101-53 at Cameron Indoor Stadium in both teams' season openers.
Randolph, whose 19th birthday was only hours away, led all scorers with 23 points on 7-for-12 shooting while pulling down seven boards, netting a block and a steal, and not turning the ball over once.
"Shavlik played really well," said head coach Mike Krzyzewski. "He has a nose for the ball and he can score points, He's going to be a complete basketball player...he's going to get better and better."
Shavlik himself also seemed pleased with his night.
"I don't think there is a better way to spend my birthday than having the Cameron Crazies sing happy birthday to me," Randolph said.
Duke used its athleticism to overwhelm the Black Knights early. With nearly every player on the floor facing a height and speed disadvantage, Army struggled against Duke's full-court press.
With about four minutes to go in the first half, Duke finally let up and played half-court defense, though the damage had already been done--the Blue Devils led 49-20 and forced Army to commit 16 turnovers in as many minutes. By the end of the game, despite
"I was really pleased with our team's defense," Krzyzewski said. "It's obvious that we have more talent, when both teams play hard, the team with more talent is going to win."
Army never led or threatened to lead, giving Duke the opportunity to showcase its young, but deep bench.
Krzyzewski often played three or four freshmen at the same time, and toward the end of the second half, five of the six were on the court, giving the youngsters much-needed experience.
"They played very well," Dahntay Jones said. "They played like a team with their defense. They played very hard, and did what they were capable of doing."
Army faced an uphill battle from the beginning. Last year it graduated a senior class of seven players that was described as one of the school's most productive ever. Perhaps even more tellingly, before Saturday, the whole team combined tallied only 56 total starts, 12 more than Chris Duhon has had by himself.
"We had big leads of course, but the intensity of the game would never indicate that," Krzyzewski said. "With about seven minutes to go, about six kids--three kids from each team--were diving for balls... I'm not sure you can see a game where two teams play any harder against one another."
While Krzyzewski tended to emphasize the hard work of Army, his alma mater and first coaching gig, at least one player wanted to shift the focus back to Duke.
"Coach said that he hadn't seen a team play harder than Army," Lee Melchionni said. "He thought that they played really, really hard, but we played harder."
Although the Blue Devils thoroughly beat the Black Knights, in nearly every aspect of the game, it would be erroneous to say that their game was a flawless performance.
The Army defense, when forced to match up against many different and potent offensive threats, often chose to leave Jones open on the perimeter. He responded by hitting one of five three-pointers.
"I'm just trying to take what the defense gives me," Jones said. "Basically, if the defense gives me jump shots I'm going to take jump shots. But if I'm not hitting jump shots, I can get out there and do other things, I'm not just going to sit there and be complacent."
The Blue Devils will face a similar situation tonight, in being heavily favored, when they host the Davidson Wildcats at 7 p.m.
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