Duke Doesn’t Let This One Slip Away

With 16 minutes to play in the biggest game of this season, Duke was thinking back to a huge game nine months ago.

The negative thoughts of a devastating loss after blowing a big second-half lead were turned positive by this season’s Blue Devils, who held on to beat Kentucky this time, 71-60, Tuesday night in the Jimmy V Classic.

Second-ranked Duke scored the first 11 points of the second half to take a 50-34 lead over No. 3 Kentucky with 15:53 to play.

Last March, in the South Regional final with a Final Four berth at stake, the Blue Devils had a 17-point lead over Kentucky with 9 1/2 minutes to play only to see the Wildcats rally for an 86-84 victory on the way to a second national championship in three years.

“We did remind them of last year with the 16-point lead because I knew they were reminding their team, saying we’ve been here before and let’s get in transition and we’re going to get threes,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Also, you can talk about it, but there’s an emotional and psychological barrier you have to get by and I didn’t think we handled it well for those four minutes. Then the last 10 or 11 minutes we fought hard. . . . We weren’t there and then I thought our guards and Elton got us back.”

Duke (11-1) stretched its winning streak to six games with some strong defense and an answer for even any thought the Wildcats (10-2) had of a comeback.

Kentucky, which had won its last six games overall and the last 11 it had played against ranked teams, just couldn’t get any kind of offense untracked in front of a sellout crowd of 20,029 at Continental Airlines Arena.

“They really kept us on our heels all night,” Kentucky Coach Tubby Smith said. “We couldn’t get anything to drop and they had a lot to do with that. They had the killer instinct. Every time we made a big shot they had an answer.”

When the Wildcats did get within 56-48 with 8:47 to play, Duke’s Elton Brand, who finished with 22 points and eight rebounds, came up with a three-point play.

A three-point basket by Heshimu Evans had Kentucky within 62-53 with 5:45 left, but Chris Carrawell laid in a loose ball with 4:30 left to get Duke’s lead back to 11.

Brand, who made nine of 12 shots, had another three-point play 1:10 later, this one with a layup from a nice pass by William Avery.

Avery, who had seven assists and six rebounds, punched the air for effect as the ball dropped through.