It was two teams trending is vastly different directions and the Duke basketball team left very little doubt following its mathcup against Miami on Wednesday night.
The No. 8 Blue Devils never trailed in its 29-point victory, 84-55, over the Hurricanes in Coral Gables as its winning streak extended to five consecutive games.
After his 35-point performance on eight 3-pointers against Florida State, a Jared McCain triple was the first made field goal of the game for Duke and the rout was officially on.
"Clearly Miami is not 100-percent, they’re far from it, they’re banged up. You still have to come ready to play. You still have to play for 40 minutes. I thought our guys did that," Jon Scheyer said after the victory.
The Hurricanes (15-12, 6-10 ACC) were without starting point guard Nijel Pack, who missed his second straight game.
Duke (21-5, 12-3 ACC) was led by 21 combined points in the first half from Jeremy Roach and Kyle Filipowski as the team shot 44.8-percent from the floor and 50.0-percent (8-of-16) from 3-point range in the opening half, building as large as a 20-point lead behind a 13-0 run midway through the stanza.
The second half was the same dominance as the first half from the Blue Devils as five players scored at least 11 points, including 12 points from Tyrese Proctor in his return to the floor from a concussion.
The lead grew to as many as 31 points, 84-53, in the final minute.
Roach ended the game with 16 points while Filipowski and Mark Mitchell each had 15 points.
It sets up a rematch from a week ago and a fascinating conclusion to Duke's 3-game road trip on Saturday afternoon (2:00 p.m. ET, ESPN) in Winston-Salem against Wake Forest (17-9, 9-6 ACC), who desperately needs the victory to bolster its NCAA Tournament resume.