If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Playing its second marquee non-conference game of the season, Duke again built a lead in the first half and needed to sustain what it did well at Arizona on Friday night.

Unlike last week’s loss to Kentucky in the Champions Classic, the 12th-ranked Blue Devils proved up to the task, finishing off these Wildcats for a 69-55 win at McKale Memorial Center.

Freshman Cooper Flagg again led the way, scoring 24 points. He shot 3-for-11 in the first half and missed his first shot of the second half, and then made seven of his last 10 shots. Per usual, he filled up the stat sheet in other ways, racking up six rebounds, three assists, two blocks and a steal.

It wasn’t just him closing out this game in which Duke (4-1) led for the last 36-plus minutes.

Kon Knueppel went from appearing overwhelmed in the first half to draining three 3s in the second half and finishing with 13 points. After hitting one early in the second half, his second one was a dagger at the 5:19 mark — Arizona (2-2) having cut the lead to 55-48 on the previous possession.

Knueppel’s last 3 came a little more than a minute later and put Duke up by 13, allowing the Blue Devils to (mostly) cruise home from there.

Caleb Foster scored all eight of his points in the second half; Tyrese Proctor and Khaman Maluach scored all eight of their points in the first half.

Scoring was important — it wasn’t the main reason Duke won the first of its two games on this road swing, as a date with Kansas on Tuesday night in Las Vegas looms large.

Arizona entered Friday night’s game having scored 1.29 and 1.38 points per possession in its two wins, and 1.07 in its 103-88 loss at Wisconsin last week.

The Blue Devils held Arizona to 0.86 ppp, the Wildcats’ lowest clip since an NCAA tournament loss to Princeton in 2023 (40 games ago). Arizona was the top offensive rebounding team in the country, per KenPom, coming into Friday night; the Wildcats had six offensive rebounds for eight second-chance points and were outrebounded by Duke 43-30.

Maliq Brown and Knueppel tied for Duke’s lead with seven rebounds each; it was a team effort, as each of the seven Blue Devils who played double-digit minutes had at least three rebounds.

Duke led 34-27 at halftime and it was the Blue Devils’ defense and rebounding that had the most to do with that score.

An Arizona team that wants to get out in transition was held to two fast-break points, while Duke had eight. The Blue Devils only allowed one offensive rebound in the first half and were outrebounding Arizona 22-14 after 20 minutes.

Maluach scored eight points in only six minutes during the first half; within a minute of making his first 3-pointer of the season, he picked up his second foul and sat for the last 7½ minutes.

TIP-INS: Duke was 9-for-25 on 3-pointers, making this the Blue Devils’ first win of the season when they didn’t make double-digit 3s. Aside from the 4-for-24 long-range showing against Kentucky, Duke has made 53 of 116 3-pointers (45.7%) this season. … Arizona was led by Jaden Bradley, who had 18 points on 8-for-16 shooting. Another starting guard, KJ Lewis, scored 12 points. … Which brings us to Caleb Love. The UNC transfer in his second season with the Wildcats scored eight points on 3-for-13 shooting, and a 1-for-9 clip on 3-pointers. In four games against Duke since the Final Four matchup, Love has scored a combined 42 points on 14-for-50 shooting.