Duke’s response continues

It’s one thing to blow out the last-place ACC team, as Duke did Wednesday night.

It’s another to blow out the third-place ACC team, as Duke did three nights later.

The Blue Devils ran over, around and through Virginia for a 73-48 win on Saturday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium, notching their second straight 25-point win in impressive fashion after out-pacing Louisville earlier this week.

Oh, what a difference a week — and these two 25-point wins — makes.

“All these guys, man, they competed,” coach Jon Scheyer said. “They blocked out a lot of noise throughout the whole year and I think we’ve really gotten better from it.”

Never has that been more obvious than this evisceration of a team that Duke (23-6, 14-4 ACC) has played a ton of down-to-the-wire games against over the last 10-plus years. Saturday’s result is the first time since 2011 — Tony Bennett’s second season — that a Duke-Virginia game has been decided by more than 10 points.

Duke’s lead was 10 on a Tyrese Proctor 3-pointer five minutes into the game. The lead dipped under 10 once for the rest of the game, for all of 26 seconds, and hit 20 points with 7:20 left in the first half.

“That’s probably one of the best ones we’ve had” this season, fourth-year guard Jeremy Roach said of where this game ranked of Duke’s 29 games. “We’re just learning. This is a great step in the right direction, we’ve got two games left and we just want to keep getting better each and every game.”

Those two Tobacco Road games are going to determine if Duke wins the ACC regular-season championship. The Blue Devils go to N.C. State on Monday, and then play host to North Carolina next weekend. They trail the Tar Heels by one game in the standings.

If Duke keeps putting together complete performances like the one it had Saturday, it’s hard to see them losing any time soon.

Duke was scoring 1.61 points per possession in the first 12 minutes of this game. To that point, the Blue Devils were 12-for-16 from the field; Virginia was 4-for-16.

It was an onslaught led by Kyle Filipowski’s 21 points, coming on 9-for-14 shooting. He scored three early baskets inside before nailing a top-of-the-key 3 in rhythm — the only 3 he took — and had seven rebounds, three steals and two assists.

“Two big wins the last two games, it’s definitely building our confidence,” Filipowski said. “Knowing we’ve got to finish out with all wins for the rest of the season, put ourselves in a great position for the tournament, we’ve just gotta keep doing what we’re doing, not get too cocky.”

The lead was 40-18 at halftime — so much for the notion that this would be a game that would test Duke’s late-game execution.

Virginia (21-9, 12-7) shot 23.1% in the first half and scored on its first four possessions of the second half. But Duke started the second half with a 3-pointer from Proctor — part of his 15-point game on 6-for-8 shooting, along with five assists and four rebounds — and extended the lead to 25 after about four minutes.

If it wasn’t over yet, that was certainly the time it was. Former walk-on Spencer Hubbard played the last 3 minutes, 42 seconds; he missed his only shot attempt, which really would’ve been the cherry atop this blowout.

“They play a lot different than a lot of people in the country,” said freshman forward Sean Stewart, who had a team-high eight rebounds in 14 minutes. “I just really had to lock in on defense to guard their actions. You can’t fall asleep.”

The Cavaliers entered this game allowing 24.1 points in the paint per game. Duke scored 28 …

In the first half.

Everything about the box score was lopsided. Duke outrebounded Virginia 42-29; the Blue Devils are now 18-1 when winning that category. Virginia entered the game leading the country in fewest turnovers per game, at 8.4; the Cavaliers committed 12 on Saturday, with Duke committing 10, and points off of turnovers was a 16-9 margin for the Blue Devils.

TIP-INS: Virginia and Duke had traded wins for the past seven matchups of the series. Duke has won two straight meetings; it’s the first time since 2019, when the Blue Devils won both meetings against the team that eventually won the national championship, that a team in this series has had consecutive wins. … Duke is now 32-3 when Mark Mitchell scores in double figures; he had 10 points, five of those coming in the first four minutes. … This was Scheyer’s 50th win as Duke’s coach, and he’s the fastest coach in school history to that mark. Duke is 50-15 in the last two seasons. … Earlier Saturday, it was announced that ESPN’s College GameDay will come to Duke for next weekend for the regular-season finale against UNC. It will be the 13th appearance at Cameron, the most of any program (UNC and Kansas have had 12).