Field Level Media
Jan 4, 2020
Vernon Carey Jr. scored a game-high 24 points, and Cassius Stanley added 20 to lead the second-ranked Duke Blue Devils to a 95-62 win over the host Miami Hurricanes on Saturday night.
Matthew Hurt added 13 points as Duke (13-1, 3-0 ACC) won its seventh straight game.
Carey, projected to be a top-10 NBA draft pick this June, played his first collegiate game in his hometown of Miami. The son of a former Hurricanes and NFL offensive lineman, Carey shot 11 of 14 from the floor and added a game-high nine rebounds and two assists.
Stanley shot 8 of 11, including 2 of 2 on 3-pointers.
Kam McGusty (12 points) and Sam Waardenburg (11 points) led Miami (9-4, 1-2), which had its five-game win streak snapped. McGusty, though, turned the ball over six times. Waardenburg played despite tendinitis in his right knee.
Hurricanes guards Dejan Vasiljevic and Chris Lykes, who combine to average 30 points, struggled Saturday. Vasiljevic shot 3 of 9 and had nine points. Lykes shot 2 of 15 and had eight points.
Miami has been a tough place for Duke to play. Even after Saturday's win, Duke is just 3-3 in its past six games on Miami's campus.
Early on, the game was tight, as Duke and Miami traded the lead seven times in the first seven minutes. However, Duke closed the first half on a 22-11 run, giving the Blue Devils a 50-36 lead at intermission.
The top first-half scorers for Duke were Stanley (16) and Carey (12), and Hurt hit a corner 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to give the Blue Devils even more momentum.
Duke got the ball inside consistently, shooting 61.8 percent from the floor in the first half, including 4 of 9 on 3-pointers (44.4 percent).
"We're not defending well," Miami coach Jim Larranaga said in a halftime TV interview. "That's been an issue for us all year -- defense and rebounding."
Things got worse for Miami in the second half as Duke dominated the final 20 minutes for the relatively easy win.
For the game, Duke shot 59.1 percent (to 39.7 percent for Miami). The Blue Devils outrebounded the Hurricanes 41-24.
--Field Level Media