The Duke Blue Devils (20-3, 12-1 ACC) suffered both their first ACC loss and road loss of the season against the Clemson Tigers (19-5, 11-2 ACC) on Saturday 77-71. It snaps a 16-game Blue Devil win streak.
Duke went cold from the field in the second half, converting on 9-of-29 (31%) field goals while allowing the Tigers to shoot 15-of-29 (51.7%) from the field in the second half. It was a similar offensive drought to the Blue Devils' nail-biting 63-56 victory at Wake Forest on January 25th.
Cooper Flagg had a chance to tie it with just under 20 seconds left and the score at 73-71, but the freshman phenom slipped on the way to the basket driving downhill, sealing Duke's fate.
With the loss, Duke also lost the chance to be ranked the #1 team in the Associated Press Poll this week, as Auburn also lost on Saturday at home to Florida. Saturday was the first time in the history of college basketball that the top 6 teams in the AP Poll all lost on the same day.
But despite a loss where the Blue Devils weren't the better team, this will help the team much more than it will hurt them.
Through the first 12 games of ACC play, it was comical how easily the Blue Devils were running through the rest of the conference. The Blue Devils won its first 12 ACC games by an average margin of 20.6 points per game, won 7 of them by 20 points or more, and won 10 of them by double digits.
Few opponents even made the game competitive against Duke. Even in the rivalry matchup against North Carolina, the game was over after the first ten minutes as Duke breezed to an 87-70 win.
The Blue Devils were widely regarded as one of the top two to three teams in college basketball riding their 16-game win streak, and it seemed like the program was going to breeze to an undefeated conference record.
Now with a loss to an NCAA Tournament bubble team that Duke is clearly better than, this just brings the Blue Devils back to earth. We've certainly seen the Blue Devils take their foots off the gas offensively in some games, specifically in the two-game stretch against Wake Forest and NC State leading up to the Carolina game.
Duke beat Wake by 7 and NC State by 10, but trailed in both games against teams the Blue Devils should run through. A comeback is one thing, but suffering a blemish on the resume is another.
"We have't lost since November or December, whenever it was," Tyrese Proctor said following the loss. "It's obviously a bad feeling but it's straight to the film room. We have such a good locker room and everybody is going to be looking themselves in the mirror to learn from it."
A veteran guard like Proctor understands what losses like these mean. They're difficult for the moment, but help later on. For the freshmen on this roster specifically, they don't know what it's like to lose to a team they're better than and have to adjust. The road for the Blue Devils has been smooth sailing up to this point.
This loss will drop Duke in the AP Poll, and will potentially bump it off of the 1-seed line for the NCAA Tournament for now, but dropping this game will be a blessing in disguise for Jon Scheyer's program as the season progresses.