Duke basketball continues hot shooting, gets revenge against Miami

The Duke basketball team continued its hot shooting against Miami in the ACC Tournament. 

Revenge was on the minds of the Duke basketball team after its humbling loss against Miami in Coral Gables five week ago.

A 22-point defeat was an embarrassing showing for the Blue Devils, despite beating the Hurricanes earlier in the season inside Cameron Indoor Stadium, but Friday night was an opportunity to not only prove that the loss was a fluke but a spot in the ACC Championship was on the line.

After shooting 62.1-percent from the floor in the quarterfinals against Pittsburgh, the Duke offense was not quite as prolific but just as effective in its 85-78 victory.

The Blue Devils connected on 54.9-percent of its shots and drilled 50.0-percent of its 3-pointers.

However, the margin of victory was not as large as Thursday afternoon because the Miami offense, despite losing Norchad Omier in the first minute due to an ankle injury, was matching Duke shot-for-shot.

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The ‘Canes made 46.8-percent of its attempts but it ended up being the Blue Devil advantage on the backboards, 36-24, that aided the Duke defense in slowing down the five double-digit scorers, led by 22 points from Isaiah Wong.

Jon Scheyer also saw five of his players score at least 10 points in the victory with Kyle Filipowski, playing on a bum ankle, make 8-of-9 shots and finishing with 17 points and 11 rebounds.

Dariq Whitehead provided a jolt off the bench with 16 points as Jeremy Roach was the player who made the clutch basket yet again to push the Duke lead to seven, 78-71, on a 3-pointer with 1:32 left.

Duke basketball one step away from rewriting history

Duke fell short in the ACC Championship a season ago but this year’s team has been trying to avenge all of its losses.

Since losing to Wake Forest, North Carolina State, and Miami in conference play, the Blue Devils have drafted each of those teams in its next matchup against its opponent.

The trend will continue regardless of who wins the other semifinal matchup between Virginia and Clemson.

Virginia defeated Duke a month ago in Charlottesville on a controversial call at the end of regulation while Clemson, in mid-January, was able to outlast the Blue Devils on its home floor.

The ACC Championship Game will tipoff on Saturday night (8:30p.m. ET) on ESPN.