The Duke basketball program improved to 17-1 overall and 6-0 in ACC play after a dominant 80-50 victory at Stanford (14-5, 3-3 ACC) on Saturday night. Duke has now become the second ACC program to escape the West Coast road trip against the Cardinal and California (14-5, 2-4 ACC) with a 2-0 record since Cal and Stanford joined the league last season.
Duke took down the Golden Bears 71-56 on Wednesday night.
The Blue Devils put together one of their best all-around performances of the season against Stanford and answered all the defensive questions that have been surrounding them over the past several weeks. Duke played elite defense against the Cardinal while limiting their freshman star Ebuka Okorie, who entered the contest leading the ACC in scoring average at 22.9 points per game. This was a Stanford team riding a lot of momentum, coming off a 95-90 victory over No. 14 North Carolina (14-4, 2-3 ACC) on Wednesday, where Okorie set the Stanford single-game freshman scoring record with 36 points.
After the Cardinal shot 57% from the field as a team and 16-of-28 (57%) from the three-point line against the Tar Heels, Duke limited them to 50 points on 35% shooting from the field and 6-of-25 (24%) shooting from the perimeter.
The Blue Devils also forced 18 turnovers on Stanford that turned into 22 Duke points. Kyle Smith’s club entered the game averaging 10.9 turnovers per game. Okorie was held to just nine points on 3-of-9 (33.3%) shooting, marking just his second game all year tallying single-digits in scoring.
Duke Likely To Jump in AP Poll After Win Over Stanford
The Blue Devils earned their eighth Quadrant 1 victory with the win over Stanford, and now sit with an 8-1 record in Quad 1 games and a 6-0 record in true road games.
Now, Duke is primed to jump up from its current No. 6 ranking in the Associated Press Poll after No. 2 Iowa State dropped two games over the week. The Cyclones fell 84-63 to Kansas on Tuesday night and 79-70 to Cincinnati on Saturday, both on the road. TJ Otzelberger’s crew will assuredly drop out of the top five in the poll after two straight unranked losses, leaving room for Duke to jump to at least No. 5.
Freshman phenom Cameron Boozer was dominant once again, going for a game-high 30 points to go along with 14 rebounds. Isaiah Evans followed behind with 15 points on 5-of-9 (55.6%) shooting from three.
