Duke Basketball: Blue Devils barley escape Wake Forest at the buzzer

The Duke Basketball team escaped by the skin of its teeth on Tuesday night against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

It was supposed to be a joyful and happy night in Durham. Instead it turned into a stressful and chaotic mess as the Duke Blue Devils found itself in a dogfight with an 11-17 Wake Forest team.

Everyone except for R.J. Barrett looked sluggish and uninterested for Duke in the first half. The Blue Devils were still able to manage a one point lead at halftime and the major assumption was that Duke would come out on fire in the second half and put Wake away, like they have done so many times before this season.

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Well, that wasn’t the case at all.

Wake Forest was the team that came out ready to play to start the second half, leading by as many as ten points.

Duke would come back and tie the game and then lead by as many as five points with under three minutes to go, but the game was long from over.

After an R.J. Barrett made shot through a zone defense in the paint, the Blue Devils led by three.

Brandon Childress went coast to coast to cut Wake’s deficit down to one.

Duke led 71-70 with under eight seconds to go when Jack White went to inbound the ball. White took the ball with two feet out of bounds, then straddled the baseline and handed the ball to Barrett who was coming to inbound the ball.

That’s a violation and Wake got the ball.

On the Deacons’ inbound, Childress missed a 3-point shot, the ball was tipped around in the paint, it came into the hands of Chaundee Brown and the ball rolled around the rim and fell out and Duke would survive.

Had the shot been good, it would not have counted as it appeared the ball was still in Brown’s hands when time expired.

Without Zion Williamson, the injury front for the Blue Devils appeared to get worse as Tre Jones went down with a knee injury after banging knees with a Wake defender on a drive and then falling to the ground on his other knee.

Jones remained in the game after the timeout to make two free throws, but then went to the locker room.

Luckily for Duke, Jones did return to the game and showed no ill-effects of the injury and had a great overall game with 13 points, eight rebounds, three assists, and three steals.

Marques Bolden also went back to the locker room with an injury and did not return to the game, although he did return to the bench, finishing with four points, five rebounds, and two blocks.

Coach K said after the game that Bolden got hit in the hip.

R.J. Barrett led Duke with 28 points, five rebounds, four assists, and two blocks, but he did have seven turnovers in the game and struggled mightily at the free throw line only making six of his fourteen attempts.

Cam Reddish as virtually invisible tonight due to foul trouble, ending the night with six points and two rebounds.

Jack White fell just short of a triple-double with eight points and 10 rebounds, while Alex O’Connell chipped in nine points in the winning effort.

Chaundee Brown led Wake Forest with 21 points and 10 rebounds and Brandon Childress with 19 points.

The win moved Duke to 26-4 overall and 14-3 in the ACC while Wake Forest dropped to 11-18 and 4-13 in conference.

Only one game remains for both teams in the regular season as Wake Forest hosts Florida State on Saturday at 12:00pm ET and the Blue Devils travel to Chapel Hill for a rematch with the North Carolina Tar Heels at 6:00pm ET on ESPN.

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