Duke handled a good Long Beach State team tonight and won 84-63. Long Beach State played with Kentucky earlier in the season and Duke avoided a potentially dangerous game after a 10 day layoff. The Blue Devils showed no signs of rust jumping out to a large lead in the 1st half due to spectacular three point shooting. Duke shot 60% from 3 point range in the 1st half and finished at 58% for the game.
In the second half, Long Beach State stopped turning the ball over and started to force Duke into turnovers of their own. LBS then turned the turnovers into easy baskets and cut the lead to as little as 13 points in the 2nd half. Duke was really never threatened though as the Blue Devils' trio of Smith (19 pts, 7 asts, 0 tos), Singler (14 pts, 9 rebs), and Scheyer (22 pts, 7 asts, 0 tos) were simply too good. The trio also had another member that made a big impact in the second half. Brian Zoubek finished with 10 points, 12 rebounds, and 3 blocks and posted a +23 in +/- in a game of runs.
Duke moves to 9-1 on the season and will play Penn on Thursday night before playing Clemson in their conference opener on Sunday.
