It's hard to forget what happened the last time the Blue Devils took a break from ACC competition to play on the road.
Duke's only souvenir from that non-conference road trip was an 87-84 loss to Georgetown Jan. 21-still the only blemish on the team's record.
The No. 1 Blue Devils (26-1) escape the conference grind once again Saturday at 2:30 p.m. against Temple (15-10)-a game J.J. Redick will begin just nine points shy of breaking Dickie Hemric's ACC record for career points. But the trip to Philadelphia will hardly be a reprieve from the rigors of the ACC. The Owls are 11-1 at home on the season with wins over Maryland, Miami and Alabama.
For Duke, the game is the beginning of a transition. All season, Blue Devil players and head coach Mike Krzyzewski have said their goal was to win the ACC regular season championship. But a 73-66 win over Georgia Tech took care of that objective-Duke clinched the outright conference title with two ACC games to play.
There is always a new goal, however, for a team that has been among the favorites to win the National Championship since the beginning of the season.
"Shelden [Williams] and J.J. [Redick] have now won 110 games in their ACC careers, and they are 110-20 or something like that, and that's a great record in itself," Krzyzewski said after the win over the Yellow Jackets. "But, if you can be a regular season champ, a tournament champ, both maybe, this is a great league, and it's an accomplishment. Then you look at Josh McRoberts, and this is his first, and it makes it nice."
The emergence of freshman McRoberts has been integral in helping the Blue Devils reach their first milestone.
Since the Georgetown game, in which McRoberts played just 13 minutes, the freshman has averaged 24.6 minutes, 10.8 points and 5.4 rebounds in the Blue Devils' nine contests. More importantly, Duke has won each one of those games.
McRoberts scored a career-high 17 points against North Carolina Feb. 7 and poured in 16 in a win over Wake Forest Feb. 14. He has displayed the dunking ability and three-point range expected from him at the beginning of the season.
Even when his shot has not fallen, the freshman has put his stamp on games. A career-high 12 rebounds against Maryland Feb. 11 helped ease the sting of an 0-for-6 shooting night. And his 9-of-11 performance from the free throw line against Miami Feb. 19 gave him 14 points on just three shots.
"He's getting the ball inside some now," Krzyzewski said after the Miami game. "He's comfortable now. He looks like a veteran. His demeanor is so good, he's making plays.
"The last month, he has a feel for what it takes. He likes being out there, he's comfortable. It's reflected right away in free-throw shooting. He's our second-best free-throw shooter. For a month and a half [earlier] this season, he was about 40 percent. When kids all of a sudden grow up like that, it's kind of neat, and he's done that."
McRoberts will need to be his new-and-improved self against a Temple squad that has been very tough at home this year.
The Owls, under Hall-of-Fame coach John Chaney, have built a reputation for stifling zone defense, and this year is no exception. They have allowed just 57.8 points per game, which places them among the top 15 teams in the nation, and they average 9.9 steals per contest.
Temple's zone also slows the game down. The Owls average the sixth fewest number of possessions per game in the nation.
In Temple's last game, the Owls limited Richmond to just 30 points in a 69-30 win, holding the Spiders scoreless for the first 6:42 of the game and the opening 12:08 of the second half. For the game, Richmond shot just 26.7 percent.
The Blue Devils have struggled against zone defenses at times this season, most recently against Miami. And Temple's match-up zone is renowned for its toughness.
"We work on that everyday in practice," Redick said of the team's zone offense after the game against the Hurricanes. "The thing about a zone is that when a team goes to it, generally you're not necessarily prepared for it at that moment.... It can stand you up a little bit, and you make weaker passes."
The game will be played in the 19,500-seat Wachovia Center-home of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers-instead of Temple's usual home gym, the Liacouras Center.
The Blue Devils have had mixed results in four games played in NBA arenas this season. They lost to Georgetown in the MCI Center, beat Drexel and Memphis to win the NIT Season Tip-Off at Madison Square Garden and defeated Texas at Continental Airlines Arena.
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