For a half on Wednesday night, Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins felt his Yellow Jackets were in excellent position to upset the Blue Devils. But in the end, the Jackets wound up in the same position as Duke’s previous 25 regular season ACC opponents — on the floor, victims of a Blue Devil knockout.

The 82-57 triumph was sixth-ranked Duke’s seventh straight win over Tech and its 43rd consecutive win in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s Devils are now a rather astounding 44-3 in their last 47 regular season ACC games.

The lopsided final score, as Krzyzewski was quick to point out, was deceiving. It was a contest most of the evening. Duke led only 38-33 after a first half that featured five ties and only 43-39 after Tech’s Alvin Jones dunked on Duke freshman Carlos Boozer with 17:20 left in the game.

But a little over two minutes later after Jones’ jolting jam, Duke grabbed its first double-digit lead on a driving lefty layup by freshman Mike Dunleavy. And by the 5:21 mark, after Duke veteran Shane Battier had punched in his second consecutive 3-pointer from the top of the key, the Devils were up by 20 at 70-50 and the game was essentially over.

“You have to be a special team to come to this building and win,” said Cremins. “We had a chance to have some fun tonight. I really liked where we were late in the first half. But then Duke turned up the heat, the Cameron Crazies got going and we cracked. You’ve got to be fearless. You can’t crack for a minute if you’re going to beat Duke.”

Just about everything that could possibly go wrong for Duke, did so in the first half, giving the Jackets a chance to hang around. Freshman point guard Jason Williams didn’t score for the first 16 minutes. And Battier misfired on his first six shots, before finally drilling a 3-pointer with 1:14 to play in the half.

On top of that, the Jackets (7-7, 0-2) presents the most difficult man-to-man matchups this side of North Carolina for the Blue Devils (12-2, 3-0) on the interior. Battier, 6-8, gave up 45 pounds and four inches to towering Tech forward Jason Collier. The 6-9 Boozer gave away two inches, lots of wingspan and a ton of experience to Jones, a 6-11, 265-pound junior. And when Boozer rested, the 6-7, 200-pound Dunleavy had to defend one of the big boys with elbows, knees and a prayer.

Jones and Collier worked the Devils over at times in the paint, ultimately combining for 32 points and 26 rebounds.

But the Devils controlled the perimeter, holding a Tech team which was averaging nine made 3-pointers a game to 2-for-15 shooting from beyond the arc. Starting guards Tony Akins and Shaun Fein combined to shoot an abysmal 3-for-17.

Krzyzewski gave the mercurial Williams most of the credit for the shutdown.

“I don’t know and don’t care what the stats say about Jason’s game tonight,” said Krzyzewski. “His ball pressure and discipline were tremendous. He scored a lot of points in high school and he’s going to score a lot of points here, but the foundation of his game is his defense and his decision-making. This was his best game by far.”

Duke got things rolling its way for good when Battier stuck a jumper on its first possession of the second half. From that point on, Battier was a man possessed, even making one flying, Jordanesque rebound dunk that had fans screaming — “Who’s your daddy? Battier!!”— for nearly five minutes.

“Things went badly in the first half for me,” said Battier. “But I thought I was taking some great shots. I’ve got confidence, so I never thought about not aggressively looking to shoot. Finally, they started to fall.”

All six of Duke’s “regulars” — the five starters, plus Dunleavy — average double figures, and all six scored in double figures last night. Battier finished with 19; Nate James and Dunleavy 13 each; Chris Carrawell 12; and Boozer and Williams 10 apiece. Williams had eight assists and only two turnovers, while Carrawell yanked down eight boards. Boozer and Dunleavy had seven rebounds each.

That balance is the best thing about a Duke team that isn’t big, deep or experienced, but is fast becoming one whale of a unit, all the same. Maybe the best indicator of how good Duke is, is that Cremins insisted that his team played well in the 25-point wipeout.

“Saturday against Virginia we played like dogs, so I told the kids to head to the bus out the back door,” he said . “Tonight, I told them I was proud, that we should walk out through the front door with our heads held high.”

Cremins, who has battled Krzyzewski for nearly two decades, also got in the last word about the latest edition of his adversaries.