Duke heats up in second half to beat Miami

Posted On: February 17, 2010 By: Cliff Comments: (zero)

It was a very sluggish start for the Duke Blue Devils on Wednesday night as they played down in Miami. The good thing was that the team came out of the half time break and really showed what kind of basketball they are capable of playing and should be playing every game. In the second half, Duke outscored Miami 56-37 to come away with a 81-74 victory. As I always say, no win on the road in the ACC conference is an easy one and that was exactly the case against Miami.

The first half was down right terrible for Duke. They were not defending the outside shot at all, they were making careless turnovers and also had foolish fouls. Jon Scheyer sat on the bench for ten minutes of the first half due to picking up two quick fouls. It was so bad in the first half that Scheyer missed his first nine shots and Nolan Smith missed his first six shots. The ball just wasn’t going in the bucket for the Blue Devils.

Things got turned around in the second half however. Kyle Singler, Scheyer and Smith combined to score 49 points in the second half as they stepped things up on offense. It was the defense that I thought that really got duke going. They made Miami commit 22 turnovers. Some of those turnovers led to fast break points which Duke was not getting in the first half.

Singler was the top scorer with 22 points but was closely followed by Smith who scored 21. Scheyer chipped in with 15 of his own points.

Up next for the Blue Devils will be a contest with Virginia Tech on Sunday night. Remember to follow us on twitter @justdukecom where we tweet during the game!

Category: Duke Basketball, Duke Basketball Game Notes