If the Blue Devils were expecting an easy victory against a Wake Forest squad that entered Cameron Indoor Stadium with just two conference wins, they were sorely mistaken.
But just like last year, Grayson Allen carried the offense past the Demon Deacons.
Playing its third game in six days, No. 17 Duke rebounded from a road loss at Pittsburgh and eked out a 79-71 win against Wake Forest Tuesday at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Allen finished with 30 points—his fourth 30-point game of the year—on 16 shots, and made 10 of his 14 attempts from the charity stripe in the second half to help put the game away with a key 11-4 run.
“We just needed to control the time and finish the game out, and we did that,” Allen said. “We made it hard for them to score down the stretch and we knocked down some of our free throws.”
After shooting just 28.6 percent from the floor in the first half, Duke (22-8, 11-6 in the ACC) led by a single point, and the Demon Deacons (11-19, 2-16) showed no signs of going away in the second half. Wake Forest grabbed several leads early on after intermission, but Matt Jones and Brandon Ingram connected on multiple 3-pointers late in the shot clock to keep pace for the Blue Devils.
The Demon Deacons had already given Duke a scare earlier this season when the teams met Jan. 6 in Winston-Salem, N.C., hanging around until late in the second half when foul trouble for senior Devin Thomas allowed the Blue Devils to pull away. Still searching for its first ACC road win in more than two years, Wake Forest rarely led Tuesday, but played scrappy basketball and would not let Duke extend its lead.
Allen—who exploded onto the college basketball scene with 27 points in last year’s Senior Day game against the Demon Deacons—did not outscore Wake Forest by himself in the first half this time around, but was once again the biggest offensive threat for the Blue Devils.
“I think Grayson got back [to himself],” Krzyzewski said. “At Pitt, you can tell, he wasn’t [himself]. All that affects you, the big [circus] over things and over him. He got out of it and had 30 points tonight.”
With the score tied at 56 coming out of the under-12 media timeout, the sophomore guard gave the Blue Devils the lead for good, draining a deep 3-pointer from the wing to put his team up 59-56. Two possessions later, Allen converted a tough jumper in the lane to give Duke a five-point lead.
And still he was not done. After Thomas cut the lead to 65-60, Allen stepped back from the right corner and splashed home a triple to close a 9-2 Blue Devil run that put them up by eight.
The Duke defense then clamped down and forced misses on eight of the next 10 Demon Deacon shots, trimming valuable time off the clock for a potential comeback.
“We got it up by eight and Coach brought us together and he was fired up and he said, ‘Next stop is ours. We need to get this next stop,’” Allen said. “I think we got the stop and that’s when I felt like we were kind of in control the game down the stretch.”
Wake Forest eventually cut the deficit to five and forced Duke center Marshall Plumlee to foul out with 1:40 remaining, leaving Krzyzewski to turn to freshman Chase Jeter for key minutes with the game on the line.
After grabbing just four rebounds in Sunday’s loss at Pittsburgh—when the Blue Devils were obliterated 39-20 on the glass—Plumlee tied a career-high with 17 boards Tuesday. He coupled those with his 13 points for his sixth double-double of the season, and Ingram also posted a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Jones went 4-of-6 from downtown to finish with 14 points before also fouling out late in the game.
Following Plumlee’s departure, Jeter was promptly fouled and made one of two free throws, stretching the Blue Devil lead to 71-65. Duke created a turnover in the backcourt—one of 18 Wake Forest giveaways on the night—and sent Allen back to the free-throw line, where he calmly swished a pair and put the lead back to eight.
Wake Forest made 5-of-9 from beyond the arc in the first half, but head coach Danny Manning’s squad went cold from downtown in crunch time, settling for several deep 3-point attempts late in the shot clock and ultimately converting on just 2-of-12 3-pointers in the second half.
The Blue Devils turned the Demon Deacons’ 18 miscues into 12 steals and 19 points, and fed off of their defense to create offense during stretches when shots were not falling consistently.
“We just knew we needed to be more aggressive. We knew we could contest a little bit,” Jones said. “We haven’t really been a team to contest and get down in the passing lane. To be able to come up with 12 steals is really key to our confidence on the defensive end.”
Duke now has just one game remaining in its regular-season slate, a Tobacco Road showdown with No. 8 North Carolina coming to Durham Saturday at 6:30 p.m. The Blue Devils defeated the Tar Heels 74-73 Feb. 17 in Chapel Hill.
“We have a game on Saturday,” Krzyzewski said. “You’re welcome to come.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.