Sunday, February 22, 2009

Duke Tops Wake Forest, 101-91

Gerald Henderson scored a season-high 35 points, and Jon Scheyer tossed in 30, as the Duke Blue Devils avenged an earlier 70-68 loss, and breaking out of a funk that had seen them lose four of their last seven conference games, whipping Wake Forest, 101-91.

Despite shooting 61% (36-59) for the game, the Demon Deacons found themselves trailing the Blue Devils by 11 at the break, 51-40, but stage a second half comeback.

Jeff Teague and James Johnson, who finished with 28 and 26, respectively, led the rally, cutting the advantage to 3 points on a couple of occasions and down to two with 9 1/2 minutes left, but by 5:21 left, despite their gaudy shooting percentage, they found themselves down 8 points, 88-80.

Duke was being led throughout by Henderson and Scheyer, plus 20 points from their productive bench. Duke also held a massive free throw advantage, hitting on 27 of 36 attempts, to Wake's 14 of 16.

The Deacons only began to wilt in the late stages. Gerald Henderson put a deep nail in the coffin with a three-pointer with 3:07 to go, which made the score 93-82.

Duke joined Florida State and Clemson at 8-4, in pursuit of 10-3 North Carolina, with Wake dropping to 7-5 in the conference.

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