Welcome to the ACC.
The intensity, the crowd, the heat in Cameron Indoor-everything was turned up a notch for the Blue Devils' conference opener against Virginia Sunday night.
Coming off two lackluster efforts against weak opponents, Duke put together its most complete game of the season and sent a message to the rest of the nation's toughest league.
"Duke is Duke," announced senior DeMarcus Nelson. "We're coming back this year to win this league. Everyone in this locker room believes that we can win this league."
While Sunday night's 87-65 win sent a message about the future, its emotional draw came from the recent past. When the Blue Devils looked across the court, the Cavaliers most visible player-Sean Singletary--elicited memories of the last time they saw him-suspended in air, parallel to the floor, launching a ridiculous Feb. 4 game-winner that sparked a losing streak in a season that featured too many of those.
On the way to their victorious locker room Sunday, Nelson and Gerald Henderson let out deep, cathartic yells. After the game, there was little echoing the party line of approaching each game the same way. The players made it very clear what last night's battle was about.
"Payback," Lance Thomas said. "Last year hurt, and people from last year's team vowed that wasn't going to happen again. We're not going to come into the locker room having that feeling of 'we woulda, coulda, shoulda.' We're not losing games by one or two points anymore."
Sunday's matchup was indeed never in doubt, as the Blue Devils dominated defensively, pressuring the Cavaliers into 19 turnovers-including seven from Singletary before halftime.
Duke also outrebounded a team that came into the week with the nation's best rebounding margin. Many of the Blue Devils' boards came away from the basket off of missed threes or tip-outs, where they always seemed to be a step swifter than Virginia.
"We know we're not the biggest team at any position, but we do know that we're quicker than almost every team we play," Jon Scheyer said. "We can be faster than the ball, and we're pretty aware of where each other are."
Perhaps most importantly, Duke's intensity did not wane throughout the game. Last year in Charlottesville, the Blue Devils blew an eight-point lead in the last 3:42.
But Sunday, as Virginia chipped away to reduce Duke's lead with just over 11 minutes remaining, the Blue Devils emphatically shut the door on the Cavaliers with a 17-4 stretch over the next five minutes.
"We didn't shoot the ball crazy well tonight," Henderson said. "We hit shots at times, but our defense is really what pushed us throughout the game."
The crowd seemed to recognize the significance of this conference opener. Cameron was packed and louder than it has been all season. Part of that was due to Crazy Towel Guy riding the Blue Devil's surfboard, but the Duke players fed off the crowd while building its first-half lead.
"Our crowd was great," Krzyzewski said. "It was like an old-fashioned Cameron game tonight."
Part of the old-fashioned feeling harkened back to the days pre-dating air conditioning, as Cameron bordered on steamy during much of the game. The heat seemed to have an effect on the visitors, as all three of Virginia's starting guards went down with cramps in the second half. Leitao said his team had dealt with the problem of cramps before, attributing some of it to his players being out of shape.
"The game was so intense that I don't think they kept up," Thomas said. "That's a really good thing that we're in that type of condition where we can let teams' bodies wear down while we're still reaching our max."
The memory of last year's 8-8 conference record will propel this Duke team throughout much of its ACC slate, but that mark will quickly be eclipsed if the Blue Devils continue to put away teams like they did with Virginia.
"We haven't had a game where everyone has played really well and is on the same page, and this game was one of those games," Henderson said.
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