By BRYAN STRICKLAND

bstrickland@heraldsun.com; 419-6671

DURHAM -- Barring the upset of the century, Duke seemed certain to close out the decade Thursday evening with a victory.

Still, the No. 7 Blue Devils treated their matchup with winless Penn just like any other game on the calendar and rolled to a 114-55 victory at Cameron Indoor Stadium in their final tuneup before ACC play tips off.

Duke (11-1) topped the school-record 113 points that Penn (0-9) yielded to North Carolina in the first round of the 1987 NCAA Tournament, and Duke's 59-point margin was the most lopsided in Penn history by 10 points.

"I think it's good that when we're supposed to win, we do. We handle business," Duke freshman Mason Plumlee said. "It's easy to not take these games as serious, but the fact that we're ready to play and we're concentrating on the game at hand, that says a lot."

Plumlee certainly came to play. He had totaled 14 points and 10 rebounds in five games since missing Duke's first six with a broken bone in his left wrist, but he poured in 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds Thursday.

Plumlee played without any sort of wrap on his wrist for the first time, and the shackles seemed to come off his game.

"That's the best thing for me tonight -- seeing Mason play well," Duke senior Jon Scheyer said. "He hasn't been himself coming back from the injury, but today he was himself.

"I think this was just indicative of how he's been practicing. If he continues to do that, he'll continue to play great in games."

Plumlee and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski both referenced Wednesday's practice, when the coaching staff gave team leaders Scheyer, Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler a breather and turned up the heat on the younger players.

"We had really about an hour of really intense work, and I think going through that gave him more confidence in his wrist because it was a physical practice," Krzyzewski said. "There's just a confidence level that you have to get when you're coming back from an injury. I think that helped."

The break from practice certainly didn't hurt the veterans. Smith led the way with 23 points, Singler scored 20 and Scheyer added 19, the trio combining to hit 21 of 31 shots from the floor and 17 of 18 from the free-throw line.

Plumlee's older brother, Miles, scored nine points and grabbed 10 rebounds, and Brian Zoubek had eight points and six rebounds as the Blue Devils outrebounded the Quakers 43-25.

It won't be nearly as easy when Duke opens the new decade against No. 21 Clemson on Sunday (7:45 p.m., Fox Sports), but Krzyzewski was pleased to see his team close out 2009 by playing so hard.

Duke went 294-59 from Jan. 1, 2000 through Dec. 31, 2009, the victory total representing the most for any program in any decade in college basketball history.

"We wanted to close out playing as hard as all these kids have played the last 10 years for us, and I thought we did," Krzyzewski said. "Our talent level is obviously greater than theirs, so if we're playing hard and they're playing hard, we should win by a significant margin.

"I was happy with the way our kids approached everything."

NOTES -- The Cameron crowd included Hollywood giant Denzel Washington, whose son, Malcolm, is a freshman guard for Penn. Washington did his best to get lost in the crowd but did offer a tip of his Penn cap when fans chanted his name. ... Duke freshman Todd Zafirovski was in uniform for the first time Thursday after spending all season on the bench in street clothes. Zafirovski, a 6-8 forward from Lake Forest, Ill., has been serving as a practice player.