Maryland had all the ingredients to knock off Duke on Wednesday night; a rowdy crowd, a hall-of-fame coach returning, but they didn't have a Plumlee. And the result was a 74-61 win for the Blue Devils who improve to 17-3 (5-1 ACC) on the season and stay in first place in the conference. They are also 3-0 on the road in conference after going 0-2 on the road in non conference play.
Duke was limping into College Park, or where ever the Comcast Center is located having lost at home, without two players who were sick and still without a sense of identity.
The Terrapin fans were pumped for their regular ACC battle against the hated Blue Devils. They were dedicating the home court to Gary Williams, the coach that helped put them back on the national map. But even Williams in the house fist pumping the crowd to their feet wasn't enough.
Early it was looking though like the Terrapins would take control of the game, but the Blue Devils fought back and despite playing some God-awful basketball, especially defensively they were able to go into the half with the lead.
The star of the game was without a doubt Mason Plumlee who did pretty much everything in this game and Maryland had no match for him. The middle Plumlee scored 23 points grabbed 12 rebounds, and even dished out four assists and had one block.
It was a good thing too because Duke couldn't hit anything from behind the line only shooting 3 of 16 from three point range.
Had anyone told me that Seth Curry, Andre Dawkins and Austin Rivers would have scored only 21 points combined and the Blue Devils would win I would have not believed them.
This was not a pretty win but it was a big win for Duke to get some confidence and for the first time in some time they appeared to show signs of having a killer instinct. It wasn't always clear but they were able to build on the lead toward the end of the game rather than lose it.
Still Duke isn't seeing much improvement in their defense. Maryland was able to get to the basket too easy. Granted the Terrapins had to really fight for shots, they were able to pass the ball in Duke's interior with relative ease.
The Blue Devils will take a break from conference play when St. John's comes to Cameron Saturday. This will be the final non conference game of the season before the NCAA Tournament and a chance to restart their home winning streak as well as get some measure of revenge for the beating the Red Storm gave them last season.
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