No. 7 Duke beats No. 8 Florida State at home in a tight defensive game
Two days after an emotional and grueling overtime road win over North Carolina, in a matchup where its captain played 42 minutes, No. 7 Duke found itself in another tight game.
This time it was against No. 8 Florida State at home.
Fortunately for the Blue Devils, the result was the same, as Duke won its sixth consecutive game, 70-65.
“I’ve got really good kids,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said with a smile. “We beat a heck of a team tonight, after beating a heck of a team in an epic game 48 hours before.
“I don’t know where they got the energy the whole game to do this, but they did.”
With the win over the Seminoles, Duke (21-3, 11-2 ACC) has sole possession of second place in the ACC.
Florida State (20-4, 10-3) is in third.
Duke sophomore guard Tre Jones, who scored 28 points against UNC, finished tied for a team-high 13 points on Monday. While he was not nearly as heroic, he didn’t need to be. A few of Duke’s role players also stepped up.
Junior guard Jordan Goldwire finished with career-high 13 points. He was 5 of 5 from the floor and 3 of 3 from the three. Freshman forward Matthew Hurt, who was scoreless in seven minutes against UNC, came up with a clutch rebound and four free throws in the final 15 seconds to ice the game against Florida State. He finished with 12 points.
Senior guard Trent Forest led the Seminoles with 18 points, 9 rebounds and 8 steals.
While Duke led by as many as 11 points in the first half, the second half was much tighter, as the two teams went back and forth. Part of the reason was Duke’s turnovers — it committed 21 on Monday, one short of a season high.
Hurt was big for Duke early.
His step-back 3-pointer gave the Blue Devils an early 19-11 lead with 11:47 left in the first half. An Alex O’Connell jump shot, extended the lead to 10 points one minute later.
But Florida State battled back. The Seminoles played well defensively, contested shots in the paint and started to attack the basket on offense, which got them easier shots.
They finally cut the lead to 33-32 after Forest made a short jump shot with 3.6 seconds left before halftime.
Duke began the second half with two turnovers on its first two possessions. Florida State briefly took a one-point lead.
From there, the game remained close. Goldwire’s 3-pointer with 15:13 left gave Duke a four-point lead.
But Florida State managed to tie the game 46-46 with a little more than 13 minutes left. The Seminoles took a 52-50 lead after redshirt sophomore forward Malik Osborne’s layup with 8:31 left.
“At the end of the first half, you could tell, we were tired,” Krzyzewski said. “Rightfully so. In the second half, we were kind of holding our own, but when they went ahead 52-50...we were ready to get knocked out, so we called a timeout. Alex (O’Connell) came in, and that last 8:29, we were terrific.”
Freshman forward Vernon Carey gave Duke a 58-57 lead with seven minutes left after he scored on a layup while being fouled. While the game was tight, the Blue Devils led the rest of the way.
“Not many teams would have won tonight after Saturday,” Krzyzewski said. “I’m so damn proud of them.”
And one
Florida State entered the game shooting 36.5 percent from behind the 3-point line. But the Blue Devils did a good job of contesting shots. The Seminoles missed 11 of their first 12 3-pointers.
Florida State finished 3 of 18 from behind the 3-point line, which is 16.7 percent.
Personal foul
The Blue Devils were often careless with the ball. They had 15 turnovers in the first 23 minutes of the game, which limited Duke’s possessions and gave Florida State more opportunities to score.
ICYMI
Duke associate head coach Jon Scheyer was back on the bench for the second consecutive game. He missed two games while recovering from the emergency appendectomy surgery he had on Feb. 1 in Syracuse.
Making sense of the numbers
21 Turnovers for the Blue Devils. Florida State is one of the best defensive teams in the country, and showed why, but Duke was often careless and out of control.
41.2 Duke’s 3-point field goal percentage. The Blue Devils were 4 of 15 from behind the 3-point line against UNC, but finished 7 of 16 against the Seminoles.
32:25 The amount of time Duke led Florida State. While the game was tight, Duke led for most of it. Duke led for 81 percent of the game. Florida State led for seven percent. It was tied the remaining 11 percent.
This story was originally published February 10, 2020 at 9:13 PM with the headline "No. 7 Duke beats No. 8 Florida State at home in a tight defensive game."
