Quick Reactions from Duke-Clemson

Some thoughts from Duke's 60-47 win over Clemson Saturday night:

1. Duke imposed its will on the game by slowly and deliberately breaking Clemson's press. Clemson head coach Oliver Purnell might've said it best: "The tempo was too slow. We didn't play the speed we needed to play to get the win." At 61 possessions, the game was slower than any game Duke or Clemson has played all season; the second half, where Duke really took control, was played in just 27 possessions. The Blue Devils usually used three or four passes and the full 10 seconds to break the press before carefully running into their offense. It was a clinic on how to totally disarm a team that thrives on creating turnovers and chaos -- especially in Littlejohn Coliseum.

2. Lance Thomas took Trevor Booker's will to compete at the beginning of the second half. The box score shows that Booker scored 12 of his 22 points in the second half, but he didn't score at all in the latter frame until 11:25 remained. By that time, Duke had used a 20-7 run to turn a tie game at the half into a 13-point advantage. Thomas' active defense prevented the Tigers from throwing entry passes to Booker throughout the second half, forcing him into a spectator's role for much of the period.

3. Nolan Smith belongs in the discussion for All-ACC and All-America. Smith is the Blue Devils' most gifted scorer since J.J. Redick left four years ago -- and has a more complete offensive game than the 2006 National Player of the Year. Smith sometimes gets lost in the shuffle -- Kyle Singler dominated discussion of Duke during the preseason and Jon Scheyer earned accolades for his play during the Blue Devils' out-of-conference schedule -- but his 18.5 points per game average is third in the ACC, and he's shooting nearly 50% from the field and 80% from the free-throw line.

4. The "Can't Win on the Road" thing was a media creation, but might have been on the verge of turning into a real problem. Three games is far too small of a sample size to make blanket statements like "Duke can't win on the road," but some media members and bloggers bought in anyway. Still, Smith's smile when he was asked how it felt to "get the road monkey off your back" by ESPN reporter Erin Andrews after the game shows that a loss to Clemson (followed by more media members harping on the same story) could have wreaked havoc on Duke's confidence. Thanks to a hard-fought second half, that's no longer a potential problem.