Wake Forest clearly had a simple game plan to thwart Duke offensively, that plan was to be as physical as possible. It seemed to work for a bit. The Blue Devils forced some shots early, shied away from contact, but still kept the Demon Deacons at bay. The first 10 minutes both teams struggled to put the ball in the basket, with Duke just managing a 3 point lead and only scoring 17 points, but an 8-1 run over the next 2:39 pushed the Blue Devil lead to 10 at 25-15. The Blue Devils extended their lead to 13 at the half on the strength of Cooper Flagg’s has 10 points, Kon Knueppel’s 9 and Sion Jame’s 8 points.
In Duke’s first game against Wake this season, the Demon Deacons erased a 13-point Duke halftime lead by scoring the first 7 of the second half on their way to a 15 to 1 run to take the lead. With Wake scoring the first 6 points of the second half of game two, it was looking as if history might repeat itself. Wake trimmed the 13 point Duke lead down to 7 points before Duke exploded for a 16-6 run, lead by 10 points from freshman Cooper Flagg. Duke followed that up with a 28-8 run to essentially salt away their 7th straight victory, 93-60 over Wake Forest.
Cooper Flagg led the Blue Devils in scoring with a game high 28 points, adding 8 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 blocks and 2 steals. Freshman Kon Knueppel added 17 points and 5 rebounds. Junior Tyrese Proctor returned to the starting lineup and scored 12 points and pulled down 4 rebounds, going 5-11 from the field. Graduate transfers Sion James and Mason Gillis added 11 points each, combining to shoot 6-12 from 3-point range. Freshman Khaman Maluach added a team high 14 rebounds, 8 on the offensive end.
The Blue Devils, for the second time under Jon Scheyer, will finish undefeated at home with a 17-0 record. Duke’s final regular season game will be at UNC with the Tar Heels playing, as Wake did, for their tournament lives.
