DURHAM, N.C. -- After the Cavaliers suffered their most devastating loss of the season to No. 20 Xavier 108-70 Jan. 3, Virginia had 10 days to regroup before Sunday's ACC opener against Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Blue Devils, however, outplayed the Cavaliers on both ends of the floor, handing Virginia its second straight blowout in an 87-65 victory.
"We didn't have one guy who didn't play hard or pretty well," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "That's really the first game that that's happened."
Energized by a capacity crowd that had Krzyzewski calling Sunday's contest "an old-fashioned Cameron game," Duke (13-1, 1-0 ACC) burst out to an early 18-6 lead in the first 5:48 and never gave Virginia (10-4, 0-1 ACC) a chance to quiet the crowd. The Blue Devils' patented denial of the passing lanes frustrated Virginia into 12 first-half turnovers, including seven from senior Sean Singletary.
"It's about the first time that we've been pressured on the wings in denials like that," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. "That really threw us off balance, and we didn't react very well."
Though Singletary had a solid shooting night, contributing 18 points on 50 percent shooting, Virginia's offense was stagnant through most of the game. Not including Singletary, the rest of the team shot a combined 40.4 percent from the floor, and a Virginia team that ranked 10th in the country in 3-point field goals made per game -- with 9.7 going into Sunday's game -- converted just four. Most notably, two of Virginia's most prominent 3-point shooters, senior Adrian Joseph and junior Mamadi Diane, struggled to find a rhythm as they made a combined four of their 16 field goal attempts and one of six 3-point field goals.
"A lot of our players, we depend on their 3-point shooting," sophomore transfer Calvin Baker said. "The three-point line is real important to our team, but I guess we just have to adjust to every situation."
In a game in which few Cavaliers could claim to have a good night offensively, Baker, who got his first start of the season over freshman Jeff Jones, was able to drive the gaps, finishing with 13 points on 6-14 shooting. The aggressiveness of Baker and Singletary, however, was far outweighed by the team's overall docility to Duke's suffocating pressure.
"They've got four, five or six guys that can [penetrate], and tonight we had two," Leitao said. "Then, once you do try to create something off the bounce, we've got to be in certain areas and certain spots to develop the kind of trust that allows the offense to continue from there, and we weren't real good at that today either."
Offensively, Duke showed off a wide array of weapons that proved too much for Virginia to handle. Six Blue Devils scored at least 8, and Duke as a team shot 50.7 percent from the floor.
"We defensively didn't keep the ball outside of the middle of the floor or outside the paint enough to prevent the amount of open perimeter shots that they got," Leitao said. "Anybody, whether it's [senior DeMarcus] Nelson, all the way up to [freshman Kyle] Singler can put the ball on the floor and make positive plays."
Nelson led the Blue Devils on both ends of the floor, scoring 20 points while spending the majority of the night chasing Singletary. Though Singletary ended up with 18 points, Krzyzewski was pleased with the way his team handled the star point guard.
"You just hope to hold him to a reasonable number," Krzyzewski said. "Eighteen, that's fine, just so he doesn't go off."
Following Duke's opening burst, Virginia regained its poise and stayed within striking distance for most of the game, cutting the lead to as little as 6 with 8:24 remaining in the first half. Duke responded with another surge, however, and pushed the lead back to 12 going into halftime. Singletary kept the Cavaliers in the hunt in the second half, scoring 10 straight points in a 2:30 span, but Virginia shrunk the deficit to single digits just once before Duke broke the game open to a 26-point lead with 6:16 remaining.
Virginia was without junior Laurynas Mikalauskas (shoulder) and freshman Sammy Zeglinski (ankle). Zeglinski underwent his second ankle surgery this season Jan. 10 and will miss the rest of the season. Virginia is filing the necessary paperwork to obtain a medical redshirt for the freshman, who played 7.8 minutes per game in eight games this season.
The Cavaliers return home tonight for a matchup with Virginia Tech, which opened its ACC season Saturday with a 67-66 home victory against Maryland.
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