Duke Basketball: Blue Devils take down Virginia on the road
By Stuart Gill
Duke basketball earned its sixth straight win in a top-15 matchup in Charlottesville.
No. 12 Duke defeated the No. 14 Virginia Cavaliers by a score of 65-55 behind Jayson Tatum’s career-high 28-point effort. Though it only took 65 points to beat Virginia, this game resonates as an example of what Duke can do when all of its pieces are there.
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This year, John Paul Jones Arena has been one of the hardest places in which to win a basketball game, and for no small reason. At home, Virginia has held opponents under 60 points 10 times, and (to no one’s surprise) have won each of those games.
But once an opponent scores 60 or more, it’s a different story. Only Ohio State, West Virginia, Florida State, and Duke have been able to do so this year. Of those four teams, Virginia managed only to beat Ohio State by two points. To make a long story short, you’ll need to play your best offensive basketball if you hope to scrape by with a win when playing at Virginia.
With Grayson Allen struggling to play like himself (he finished with five points on 2-of-10 from the field), Tatum hit six out of seven three-pointers and ended up only missing five shots all game to propel Duke to this win. With three minutes left and Virginia only down four, Tatum would hit 3’s in back-to-back possessions to extend the lead to 10 and allow the Blue Devils to rely on knocking down free throws the rest of the way.
Perhaps the most telling statistic in regards to Tatum’s dominance is that his scoring accounted for 43 percent of Duke’s total offense on the night. He also grabbed eight rebounds in the win.
Virginia put together a solid game against the streaking Blue Devils. London Perrantes dropped 14 points, though he shot just 1-of-5 from beyond the arc. Ty Jerome came off the bench to score 13. The Cavaliers were ahead 25-21 at the break, and scored 30 points in the second half but ultimately had no answer for Jayson Tatum defensively, nor did they have anyone on their roster who stepped up to provide scoring to keep them in it.
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With their sixth win in a row, Coach K’s group suddenly finds themselves tied with Florida State and Louisville for second place in the ACC, just one game behind UNC. While the conference was home to more than a few upsets and surprise finishes this year, the standings appear to be panning out the way most people would expect with UNC, Duke, FSU, Louisville and Virginia making up the top half.