Duke basketball looks dominant in thrashing of Clemson

Duke basketball looked dominant in a victory over the Clemson Tigers. 

It was said in jest during our game preview, but not even Trevor Lawrence could have saved the Clemson Tigers (10-5, 4-5 ACC) against the Duke basketball program on Saturday afternoon.

The Tigers didn’t score their tenth point until the 7:24 mark of the first half, as the Blue Devils (7-5, 5-3 ACC) were already boasting 22 points.

Duke has not run any team out of the gym this season, but Clemson was steamrolled out of Cameron Indoor Stadium, 79-53.

Mike Krzyzewski’s team did everything right on Saturday afternoon: shooting, rebounding, passing, turnovers, etc.

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You name it, Duke did it better than Clemson.

To make things better, the Blue Devils didn’t have one standout player as Matthew Hurt was the team’s leading scorer in the victory with 13 points, but the play everyone is going to remember is a Jalen Johnson dunk early in the first half.

Again in jest, we asked if anyone could top Zion Williamson’s dunk against the Tigers the last time they visited Cameron Indoor Stadium.

We didn’t actually think someone would challenge the former Duke freshman.

Five Blue Devils reached double-figures, and Johnson was not one of them, as freshmen Jeremy Roach and Mark Williams posted 11 and 12 points off the bench for Duke, respectively.

Duke basketball finally looks like itself

The 2021 season has been unordinary in so many ways, too many to specifically mention, but the lack of convincing wins for Duke has been startling. However, the Blue Devils are slowly figuring things out as February approaches.

Duke seemed to solved its issues in close games in its victory over Georgia Tech on Tuesday and now a start-to-finish throttling of Clemson, a team previously ranked at No. 12 in the country.

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It remains to be seen how NCAA Tournament analysts will project the last two victories for the Blue Devils in their chances of making the Big Dance, but Duke is certainly trending in the right direction.

The Blue Devils return to the court on Monday, February 1 against Miami (FL) [6-10, 2-9 ACC] at 7:00pm EST (ESPN).