The only people who could stop Ryan Kelly on Saturday were the officials. Certainly not Wake Forest. Kelly scored a season-high 22 points in the top-ranked Blue Devils' 80-62 rout. Seth Curry also had 22 points and Quinn Cook a career-high 14 assists for undefeated Duke.
The nonconference portion of Duke’s basketball schedule is complete, and the Blue Devils received a perfect grade.
Coming off the peak of his football career so far, Thad Lewis returned to the place and the people he shared so many highlights with along the way.
There wasn’t much to like about Duke’s offense against N.C. State Thursday night at Reynolds Coliseum. But in the final six minutes, with a tough ACC women’s basketball game on the line, the Blue Devils gutted out enough plays to escape unbeaten.
Aside from Duke’s remarkable non-conference season, it’s been another year of mediocre results for the ACC heading into league competition, which begins this weekend.
Duke’s Conner Vernon, the ACC’s career leader in pass receptions and receiving yardage, has accepted an invitation to play in the 64th Senior Bowl, which will be played at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Ala. on Jan. 26 (4 p.m., NFL Network).
Davidson did something no one else has this season by slowing Duke’s Mason Plumlee on Wednesday night.
He’ll play in the arena where his father regularly works against the team that his older brother elevated to a basket shy of the Final Four.
Playing an overmatched non-conference opponent before ACC play resumes in earnest later this week, No. 4 Duke made sure its defense was in top form on Sunday.
The Blue Devils tied an NCAA record holding Monmouth to three first-half points on the way to a 73-32 women’s basketball win at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Santa Clara scored more points against No. 1 Duke than any team previously this season.
Perfect in every test this season, No. 1 Duke puts its extended holiday break in the past to begin a more regulated schedule of games.
An emotionally painful loss will leave one of the best players in Duke’s football history with a major physical wound to heal, as well.
Like Lucy luring Charlie Brown into whiffing on a kick, the Bearcats snatched away the momentum with a second-quarter barrage and took advantage of four turnovers by the Blue Devils to spoil their first bowl game since 1994.
The final score of the Belk Bowl shows Cincinnati with a 48-34 win over the Blue Devils, who played in their first postseason bowl game in 18 years. That score belies simply how close Duke (6-7) came to its first winning season since 1994 and its first bowl win since Jan. 2, 1961.
Getting Duke football from the depths it reached during the last decade, when any win was rare, was a painful, painstaking process.
Kenny Anunike was there every step, and oftentimes limp, of the way.