While initial prognostications had Duke dominating Wake, the Demon Deacons weren’t interested in coming to Durham to be the Blue Devils whipping boy.
Wake used aggressive play and hot shooting early to give Duke a tough time, but late in the first half Rodney Hood (8 points) and Jabari Parker (21 points) started cooking and the Blue Devils were able to build a double digit lead heading into the break and never looked back winning 83-63.
Early it was Rasheed Sulaimon (19 points) and Andre Dawkins (17 points) whose play set up the late first half surge. Sulaimon who has come on strong of late continued his aggressive play and hot shooting to set the pace.
Dawkins did what he does best and shoot the lights out of Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Initially the Demon Deacons were able to get what they want, but Duke pulled together defensively and during the stretch in the first half that helped them build the lead they forced Wake Forest into four straight turnovers. Overall the Blue Devils forced 11 turnovers in the first half and 19 for the game.
In the end Duke was just too much for Wake Forest who continues to fall farther from the upper level of the ACC, a place they were near the top of not that long ago.
The Blue Devils were able to shake off any possible hangover from the tough loss in a thrilling game against Syracuse this past weekend. Despite the loss, Duke’s recent level of play impressed the AP and Coaches’ polls to move them up as many as 7 spots to No. 11 in the country.
Duke will hit the road traveling to Boston on Saturday before the always big match up with arch rival North Carolina who has suddenly been surging winning four straight games as of Tuesday.
The Blue Devils will continue to need to keep getting better and part of that will be trying to get Quinn Cook who has fallen into a bit of a funk going again as they will need him at his best to make any kind of serious run going forward.
Duke is now 18-5 (7-3) ACC and currently in 3rd place behind Syracuse and Virginia.
