Duke Blows Out Miami, 84-55

Miami was limited so keep it in perspective.

In the early part of the second half, Jay Bilas said “it’s been like Pleasantville for Duke” - and that reference to the 1998 movie was spot on because Duke just rolled and everything was going their way.

However, Miami played without Nigel Pack, who is injured, and Matthew Cleveland, who is ill and it was no surprise that Duke jumped out to an early lead.

Miami nearly caught up at 16-14 but the Blue Devils went on a 13-point run to pull ahead by 15 at 29-14 and never looked back.

It didn’t help that Kyshawn George had early foul trouble which further hurt Miami’s depth.

Duke was up 29-18 when Jeremy Roach hit back-to-back threes to give the Blue Devils a 35-18 lead.

Duke shot 50 percent on threes in the first half, with Roach shooting 3-4. Jared McCain, who was so torrid at FSU this past Saturday, hit just 1-5 in the first half. McCain was certainly not as spectacular as he was at Florida State, but those games don’t come along often for anyone and he is, after all, still a freshman. He finished with seven points, hitting 3-9 overall and just 1-6 from deep.

Mark Mitchell continued his solid all-around play on both ends, getting 10 points and four boards in the half.

Kyle Filipowski had five points and four rebounds in the first and also had a career highlight play with a spin move out of the corner for a reverse dunk. We’ve raved about his spin move and that may have been the best manifestation of it we’ve ever seen.

The best news in the first half though might have been the return of Tyrese Proctor. He missed the Florida State game after what appeared to be a possible concussion against Wake Forest. However, he obviously cleared the protocols and did well in the first half, finishing that side with three points, four assists and a steal.

We thought, given Miami’s injuries, that Duke’s guards should have a good night and they did, particularly Roach, who finished with 16, hitting 4-6 from deep and 4-8 overall.

Caleb Foster and Sean Stewart both played well also. Neither had gaudy stats but other than Stewart picking up two fouls, neither looked particularly like a freshman either.

Duke did lose focus for a bit with a big lead in the second half, but Ryan Young took care of that. First he broke up a four-on-none fast break, running in at the last second to tip the ball out of bounds. The last time we remember seeing someone break one up like that at Duke was Grant Hill. Doesn’t happen very often (his was when UNC came at him four-on-one and he personally denied the break, calmly bringing the ball up afterwards).

Then he helped stop Omier, double-teaming with Filipowski. Then he picked up a rebound and not long after that, he got a beautiful pass off inside to Filipowski, who was fouled by Omier. It was upgraded to a flagrant one and Filipowski converted both shots. Omier fouled Filipowski again after that and Filipowski split his shots the second time. Duke was up 61-39 after that and focus was more or less back.

Omier was very frustrated, shooting just 3-14. It was exemplified when he missed a wide open dunk with Duke up 67-42.

Shortly after that sequence, Filipowski hit Proctor with a beautiful pass in traffic for a layup to put Duke up 71-47. After that, Mitchell had a break-away steal for a dunk, then came back and blocked a perimeter shot.

Not long after that, Miami coach Jim Larranaga took Omier out and Scheyer responded by emptying his bench.

We got this far without really mentioning defense and Duke’s was really good: the Devils held the ‘Canes to 31.1 percent overall and 6-25 on three point attempts for 24 percent.

Miami gets a lot of credit for playing hard in a tough situation, but realistically, it just didn’t have enough players to compete at a high level.

It was fun to get a road win like this but you shouldn't read much into it. Miami was just too crippled to compete effectively. That will emphatically not be the case at Wake Forest on Saturday which is going to be a very, very tough game.

• No. 8 Duke men’s basketball runs the floor, dominates on both ends for comfortable win at Miami
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