Fourth-ranked Duke blisters nets, humbles second-ranked Wisconsin
MADISON, Wis. -- Basketball royalty arrived at the Kohl Center on Wednesday night, and with it came a fervor unmatched for a December basketball game in these parts. Any time Duke makes an appearance on a schedule, the Blue Devils tend to have that effect.
"When we're on the road, it's usually a party," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski would say. "And we're the ones that they're trying to eat."
But the only team that had any fun at the party was No. 4 Duke, which outlasted No. 2 Wisconsin 80-70 in one of the most highly anticipated nonconference games of the season. And for a Badgers team many believe can make a run at a national championship, the defeat was humbling on many levels.
For starters, Duke absolutely obliterated Wisconsin's typically staunch defense. How good were the Blue Devils? They shot an astounding 60.0 percent from the field in the first half . . . and then proceeded to blister the nets even further in the second half by drilling 71.4 percent of their shots. In total, Duke set a Kohl Center record for shooting percentage, hitting 65.2 percent from the field (30 of 46) in a building that opened 16 years ago.
All this against a Wisconsin team that had allowed opponents to shoot only 37.1 percent this season.
"They hit some tough shots, but they have good enough players that can do that at times," Badgers coach Bo Ryan said. "To have as many do that in the same night, that's just not fair. I don't care what anybody says. They were lights out."
What made Wisconsin so reliable during last season's remarkable Final Four run was the team's ability to collect contributions from the entire playing rotation. But if you're looking for another reason UW fell flat on Wednesday, it's that only two players scored more than seven points: point guard Traevon Jackson and Frank Kaminsky. Fellow starters Nigel Hayes and Sam Dekker, who averaged 26.3 points combined through the first seven games, shot 3 of 10 from the field and scored just nine points.
"They're really good players," Krzyzewski said. "Sometimes the ball doesn't go in, either. I thought our switching and the intensity with which we played defense was the major factor in us winning."
Duke, meanwhile, had four players score in double figures: point guard Tyus Jones (22 points) guard Rasheed Sulaimon (14), center Jahlil Okafor (13) and guard Quinn Cook (13).
Many presume Okafor, a 6-foot-11 freshman, will be the No. 1 pick in next year's NBA Draft. But he was far from the only draw Wednesday. Duke brought with it nine McDonald's All-Americans, or seven more than Wisconsin has had since the inaugural game in 1977. The Badgers were supposed to counter with Dekker and 7-foot senior Kaminsky -- two viable first-round NBA Draft picks themselves.
The game featured a Final Four feel from the outset and represented just the third matchup between top-five teams in Kohl Center history. Fans lined up well outside the arena two hours before tipoff, the line snaking toward the student rec center located next door. Two courtside tickets appeared on StubHub with a list price of $5,000 apiece. ESPN brought its college basketball crew to perform pregame updates from a set next to the court and hosted a live SportsCenter there after the game. All told, 32 NBA scouts were in attendance.
And, for the better part of 30 minutes, the game lived up to its billing as a marquee matchup.
Despite Duke's torrid shooting pace, Wisconsin maintained a 43-42 lead on Hayes' foul shot with 15:09 remaining in the game. But the Blue Devils (8-0) quickly scored six points and never gave back the lead.
Jackson nearly single handedly brought Wisconsin back from the depths of despair. He scored a career-high 25 points on 7-of-12 shooting, buried three 3-pointers and also repeatedly forced his way into the lane. One of his jumpers helped the Badgers creep to within 51-49 before the Blue Devils once again used a quick 7-0 spurt to pull away.
"If we had probably one more guy really hit a couple more shots, then I think that it'd be a closer game," Jackson said. "It was close, but we never made them nervous at all. They always had a comfortable six-point lead. If we can get it down to two, then that's like on their heels with our home-court advantage."
Kaminsky added 17 points and nine rebounds and certainly comported himself well against Okafor. But that was little consolation for Wisconsin (7-1), which had its 23-game regular season nonconference winning streak snapped.
"At the end of the day, it wasn't enough," Kaminsky said.
It's still only early December, and four months remain in a season that could very well see these two teams square off again at the Final Four. But after Wednesday's game, the message was clear about where Wisconsin stood in the college basketball pecking order.
"They're better than us right now," Ryan said. "There's no question. And we've got to shore some things up."
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