No. 2 Duke routs Wake Forest
After sweating out a win at Georgia Tech on Wednesday night, No. 2 Duke returned to its dominating ways on Saturday night.
The Blue Devils torched the nets to lead by 26 at halftime and rolled to a 90-59 ACC basketball win over Wake Forest at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Since losing 85-83 in overtime to Stephen F. Austin on Nov. 26, Duke (15-1, 5-0 ACC) has had just one of its nine consecutive wins decided by less than 10 points. That was the Blue Devils’ 73-64 win over Georgia Tech in Atlanta on Wednesday night.
Three of Duke’s last four ACC wins have been decided by 30 points or more.
Wake Forest (8-7, 1-4 ACC) was just the latest team to run into the Duke buzz saw.
The Blue Devils hit 18 of their first 24 shots — an astounding 72 percent clip — to build a 45-21 lead with 3:34 left in the first half. Duke finished the first half shooting 62.5 percent and the game at 53.2 percent.
Tre Jones scored a game high 23 points for the Blue Devils while also adding five assists and four steals. Freshman Cassius Stanley scored 16 points for the Blue Devils. Sophomore guard Joey Baker came off the bench to add 11 points while making all three of his 3-point shots.
Jack White tallied 11 points and Jordan Goldwire scored 10 points with six assists for Duke.
And-1
Duke turned in one of its better 3-point shooting nights of the season, sinking 11 of 23 shots from behind the arc, for a 47.8 shooting clip. The only other game the Blue Devils made more 3-pointers was their 12 of 28 (42.9 percent) night against Boston College on Dec. 31.
Personal foul
Wake Forest’s problems at Cameron Indoor Stadium continued as the Demon Deacons have not won in Durham since 1997. Duke owns 11 consecutive wins in the series, regardless of location, dating back to Wake’s 82-72 win at Winston-Salem on March 5, 2014.
ICYMI
Goldwire earned his fourth starting assignment for the Blue Devils. One game after playing 37 minutes as a reserve at Georgia Tech on Wednesday night, the junior guard was in the starting lineup with Tre Jones, Matthew Hurt, Vernon Carey and Cassius Stanley. It’s the first time Duke used that starting five since the season-opening win over Kansas on Nov. 5.
Making sense of the numbers
6: Scoreless games in a Wake Forest uniform for Brandon Childress. The senior guard entered Saturday night’s game averaging 16 points per game to lead Demon Deacons. He went scoreless on six shots, committing four turnovers.
8: Points scored against Wake Forest by Duke’s Vernon Carey, a season-low for the 6-10 freshman. He leads Duke at 18.1 points per game.
900: Wins Duke has recorded at Cameron Indoor Stadium. That’s the most wins of any college basketball team in its current home arena. The Blue Devils are 900-162 -- an .847 winning percentage -- since playing its first game at Cameron on Jan. 6, 1940.
This story was originally published January 11, 2020 at 10:13 PM with the headline "No. 2 Duke routs Wake Forest."