Unfortunately, the stat sheet did all the talking: nine points, seven turnovers and a 98-87 Maryland win to end Duke’s 31-game ACCwinning streak.

Sunday’s Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament championship game offered redemption for the Blue Devils’ freshman point guard, and he jumped at the chance.

Williams scored a career-high 23 points, shut down Maryland point guard Steven Blake and walked away with the tourney’s Most Valuable Player award. His big game gave top-seeded Duke an 81-68 win over No. 2 Maryland, making the Blue Devils the first team to win back-to-back ACC regular-season and tournament championships since the 1973-74 N.C. State squads led by David Thompson.

“Everybody kept talking about it,” said Williams of his first two games against Maryland, when he combined for 15 turnovers and 15 points. “It wasn’t one my goals to go out there and outperform him (Blake). It was my goal to go out and run my team and I think I did that.”

Williams still turned the ball over six times — one of the first things he mentioned while talking to reporters after the game, which he declined to do after the loss. But his six assists and stifling defense on Blake, who scored only seven points and had six turnovers, more than made up for the mistakes.

“You’ve got to live with it. He made six turnovers, but he’s the only point guard we’ve got,”Duke senior ChrisCarrawell said. “He handles the ball so much. You’ve got to live and die with him. Today we lived with him because he carried us. For him to take over the game the way he did was huge.”

The BlueDevils (27-4) built a 10-point lead early in the second half when Williams connected on a running jumper in the lane. A Maryland run trimmed the deficit to 56-52, and Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski called timeout.

Duke went inside to Carlos Boozer, another freshman who starred with 21 points, and got a quick score. Williams then followed a Maryland turnover with a 3-pointer and answered a Blake miscue with a running jumper to push the lead to 63-54 with 6:47 to play. His 3-pointer at the 1:40 mark made it 74-61 and sent the Terrapin fans scurrying for the exits.

“He played well. I think I let him get into the lane too much today,”Blake said. “He penetrated and made things happen.”

“Blake got the best of him two games. Clearly,”Carrawell said. “Forced him into turnovers, bad decisions. Jason was telling me, ‘I’m going to go at him.’ For him to come back and really control the game in the second half, it was huge.”

A renewed Williams and improved defense made all the difference. Maryland (24-9) shot 54 percent from the field in the win at Cameron and 39 percent in Sunday’s final. Perhaps the biggest missing link in the Terrapins’ offense was free-throw shooting. Maryland got to the line just eight times, while Duke finished 18-for-21.

“At one point we had six straight two-foot, one-foot shots that wouldn’t go down,”head coach Gary Williams said. “We usually get to the free-throw line in those situations but we couldn’t do that today and the ball wasn’t going in, so it was a bad combination.

“What we did when we beat Duke at their place was score most of the time in the second half and maintain the lead down the stretch,”Williams added. “We did a pretty good job playing from behind the first half, but the second half we didn’t score enough to make it tight enough.”

Duke threatened to pull away early, taking a 22-11 lead halfway through the first half on a Nate James jumper. An 8-0 Maryland run, behind consecutive 3-pointers from Juan Dixon and Terence Morris, narrowed the gap and the BlueDevils settled for a 37-36 edge at the half.

“We had three great games with them this year and thank goodness we won the last one,”Krzyzewski said. “We’re ecstatic about the win.”