PITTSBURGH—Playing a team desperate for a resume-building win, the Blue Devils had no answer on the interior Sunday.
Pittsburgh controlled the game from the get-go, dominating the paint and cruising past No. 15 Duke 76-62 Sunday afternoon at the Petersen Events Center. The Panthers outrebounded the Blue Devils 39-20, outscored them 24-6 in the paint and never gave Duke a chance to get back in the game, picking up their first win of the season against a top-25 opponent.
“We could not muster up anything today,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “They’re big in every way… It’s not like we didn’t expect it. We couldn’t stop it.”
With their NCAA tournament hopes squarely on the bubble, Pittsburgh (20-8, 9-7 in the ACC) jumped out to a 10-0 lead and did not look back. The Panthers led by as many as 13 in the first half after making three of their first four attempts from downtown, then started going to work inside. Big men Jamel Artis and Michael Young combined for 16 points and seven rebounds in the first half, and Pittsburgh ripped down nine offensive rebounds.
Artis finished with a team-high 17 points—one of five Panthers to finish in double-figures—five rebounds and four assists.
On the other end of the floor, Duke (21-8, 10-6) could not get anything going. The Blue Devils coughed up the ball seven times in the first half—followed by six more turnovers after intermission—and managed just two points in the paint before intermission.
Midway through the half, though, freshman Brandon Ingram began using his length to attack the paint and draw contact, and Duke closed a 13-point deficit to just 39-32 at intermission. The swingman finished the half with a team-high 13 points on 4-of-9 shooting but had just four after halftime, picking up four second-half fouls. Grayson Allen led the Blue Devils with 22 points for the game, 15 of them in the final 20 minutes.
Whatever momentum Duke took into the locker room quickly evaporated when the teams returned to the floor. Pittsburgh scored seven of the first eight points of the frame to get the lead back into double-digits, again attacking the basket and commanding the glass. The Panthers secured the half’s first seven rebounds, getting second-chance points and keeping Duke from getting anything started in the paint.
“When we’ve been in close games against really good teams, it’s because we’ve turned our weakness into one our best things, which was rebounding,” Allen said. “Tonight we didn’t do that at all. They killed us on the glass and it showed on the score.”
Just as in the first half, 3-pointers helped Pittsburgh continue to grow the lead, regardless of whether the Blue Devils countered with a 1-3-1 zone, a 2-3 zone or man-to-man. The Panthers made eight of their 20 attempts from long range, and though Duke tried to stay in the contest with 11 triples of their own, they could not clean up the glass on their 21 long-range misses.
Duke’s best opportunity to claw its way back into the game arrived with 10:56 left. Junior guard Matt Jones started things with a triple, and after the Panthers responded with a bucket, the Blue Devils continued to rally with two Allen free throws and a Luke Kennard 3-pointer from the corner, closing the deficit to just 10.
But Duke got no closer. The Panthers responded with a 16-3 run thanks to three 3-pointers by Ryan Luther, James Robinson and Artis, and the lead ballooned to as many as 23 points before the Blue Devils made the final score slightly more respectable. Playing the final home game of his career, Robinson—the NCAA career leader in assist-to-turnover ratio—handed out seven helpers to go with his 14 points
The Blue Devil guards did not step up on the glass Sunday, unlike their efforts against Florida State and Louisville. Center Marshall Plumlee was often surrounded by three Panthers as he went up to compete for rebounds, and grabbed just four boards—still the team-high.
“We just didn’t battle in the low post,” Ingram said. “Some of our guys didn’t have the rebounds they have normally. For myself, I didn’t have the rebounds I have normally.”
The Panthers swung the ball around the court quickly, leading to 20 assists on 28 made field goals. By contrast, Duke’s offense relied on individuals driving into the lane to create shots, and the Blue Devils recorded just 10 assists. Pittsburgh used active hands to swipe the ball away from Allen and freshman point guard Derryck Thornton as they tried to penetrate, and the duo combined for seven of the 13 Duke turnovers.
“We just needed to move the ball around more,” Allen said. “I still think when we move the ball around, we got good stuff. I think on offense we got caught standing a lot.”
The Blue Devils will look to bounce back at home Tuesday night against Wake Forest.
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