By Bret Strelow
bstrelow@salisburypost.com
CLEMSON, S.C. ó Mike Krzyzewski called a timeout in the final minute of fourth-ranked Duke’s 74-47 loss to 10th-ranked Clemson on Wednesday night.
The break gave his Blue Devils more than enough time to digest the consequences of their performance.
“He said to just look around, look at their crowd, look at the score,” fifth-year senior David McClure said. “I think that really hit home. To call a timeout like that really made a statement.
“I honestly was getting sick to my stomach. I’ve never felt anything like that. It was one of the most embarrassing and disgraceful things I’ve ever been a part of.”
The Blue Devils (19-3, 6-2 ACC) suffered their worst loss since a 103-73 blowout at the hands of UNLV in the 1990 national championship game.
The final point total against Clemson (19-2, 6-2) tied for the second lowest output by a Duke team under Krzyzewski, who took over the program in 1980. The Blue Devils lost 40-36 to Maryland in Krzyzewski’s second season.
“You can’t hang on to it, but you never forget about a game like this,” said Gerald Henderson, who scored a team-high 16 points.
Duke, which had fallen at Wake Forest a week earlier, bounced back to beat Virginia on Sunday. After that game, Krzyzewski discussed the varying approaches he’s taken regarding how to deal with losses.
He said, based on makeup and personality, he wanted Steve Wojciechowski-led teams of the 1990s to remember them and the current squad to forget them.
He altered his stance on selective memory Wednesday, when the Blue Devils shot a season-low 31 percent.
“Our players shouldn’t forget this loss,” Krzyzewski said. “This is as bad as you can play. You can’t say, ‘Oh, that’s OK.’ Not if you’re wearing a Duke uniform.”
Clemson held starters Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith to a combined 12 points. Singler led the group with six, and Greg Paulus had only two points off the bench.
Scheyer, who went 1-for-8 from the field, scored his only points on a 3-pointer midway through the second half.
“It was 40 minutes of them dominating,” Krzyzewski said. “They just kicked our butt.”
It was Clemson’s biggest margin of victory against the Blue Devils since a 100-66 thrashing in 1975. The Tigers, who broke a 22-game skid in the series by defeating Duke in the semifinals of last year’s ACC Tournament, posted their second consecutive win on the 14th anniversary of a 51-44 victory over a Pete Gaudet-coached Duke team at Littlejohn Coliseum.
Clemson picked up its seventh win against a top-five opponent since 1980 and its first since a home upset of top-ranked North Carolina in 2001.
“I’ve said all along you get better as a team by taking lessons from seasons before, from games before,” Clemson coach Oliver Purnell said. “You’d like all those lessons to be positive, but sometimes you have to take them from losses.
“That really applied tonight. We were ready for this atmosphere. We embraced it, but yet we narrowed our focus to what we needed to do to beat Duke, then just kind of rode the crowd as the game went along.”
Clemson’s fullcourt pressure created three steals in the first four minutes. The Blue Devils had 11 turnovers, eight field goals and two assists in a first half that ended with them trailing 33-21.
The Tigers took control by scoring the first five points of the second half, and Scheyer was the only Duke starter on the floor with 15:29 left. Krzyzewski often subbed five at a time in a desperate attempt to awaken his team.
“They’re a team that has a lot of pressing defenses, and we didn’t handle them well,” McClure said. “They wanted to really say ‘Boo’ and have us spit the ball up. That’s exactly what we did. We didn’t have any poise with the ball. We really didn’t have much leadership from anybody out there.”
Singler drilled a 3-pointer from the left corner with nine minutes left, but official Michael Stephens blew his whistle and pointed at a foot of Singler’s that was out of bounds.
Terrence Oglesby (17 points) answered with a 3-pointer, and Trevor Booker (21 points) capped Clemson’s next possession with a dunk that left the basket shaking for 10 seconds.
“We always want to be the team to keep looking forward whether it’s after a big win or a loss,” McClure said. “I don’t think anyone’s really going to get this taste out of their mouth for a long time.”