By Will Vandervort.
After falling behind by 19 points early in the second half at Duke on Saturday, Clemson quietly battled back and cut the lead to 10 points when Demarcus Harrison hit a teardrop in the lane with 13:57 to play. But then the Blue Devils, who had made just one of their first 11 three-pointers to start the game, started making everything from downtown.
First Grayson Allen made a three-pointer from the right corner to end the Clemson run, then a few moments later Quinn Cooke drained another from the same spot to push the lead back to 17 points. After that it was all she wrote for the Tigers who lost for a 16th straight time in Cameron, 78-56, dating back to the 1994-’95 season.
Duke went on a 25-4 run after Clemson cut the lead to 51-41 with 13:57 to go. The Blue Devils made six straight three-pointers during that stretch. Duke finished the game 7 of 20 from behind the arc.
The Blue Devils led by as many as 30 points in the second half.
Clemson lost for the fourth time in five games as it dropped its record to 15-12 and 7-8 in the ACC, while No. 4 Duke improved to 22-3 overall and 11-3 in the ACC.
Cook led Duke with 27 points, while Justise Winslow added 20 points. The Blue Devils outscored the Tigers 42-30 in the paint. It helped that Clemson turned the ball over 14 times and Duke turned that into 16 points off turnovers.
The Tigers were led by Jaron Blossomgame’s 10 points. He also had seven rebounds. Donte Grantham had eight points, while Rod scored seven points and dished out four assists.
The Blue Devils led 42-27 at the break when Cook hit a floater as time expired. Despite making 1 of 7 threes from the field in the opening 20 minutes, Duke on 54.5 percent of its shots, but that was primarily because of turnovers.
Clemson turned the basketball over eight times, which directly led to nine Duke points. The Blue Devils had a 30-18 edge on points in the paint. Cook had 10 points and Winslow scored 17. They combined for 12 of 21 shots, while Jones had four assists.
The Tigers came out strong in the opening half as they built a five-point lead, 11-6, when Landry Nnoko made a jump hook in the lane. That came with 15:17 to play in the first half.
Clemson held a 15-13 lead when Hall stopped and popped a jump shot in the lane with 11:02 to play. The Tigers made 7 of their first 13 shots before things started to go bad.
Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski then went to full-court pressure that started forcing turnovers and bad shots by the Tigers, allowing the Blue Devils to quickly take control of the game. The Tigers missed two of their next 12 shots.
In less than one minute, the Blue Devils scored 10 unanswered points. That allowed Duke to build a 29-17 lead on a Winslow shot with 6:01 to play in the half. They never looked back after that.