Game Of The Day No. 14 Duke 87, No. 4 Villanova 79 -- Blue Devils Don't Repeat Collapse
PHILADELPHIA - There was so much going on in the minds of Duke's perimeter players.
Ricky Price and Jeff Capel were in the worst shooting slumps of their careers. Trajan Langdon had been OK from long distance but was struggling otherwise.
The 14th-ranked Blue Devils also were thinking about their loss to Michigan last Sunday, when they went without a field goal over the last 10 minutes and blew a double-digit lead at home.
Blown leads and shooting slumps were things of the past yesterday as Duke held on to a big second-half lead and beat No. 4 Villanova 87-79 in the first college basketball game played at CoreStates Center.
Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski brought up the 62-61 loss to Michigan during a timeout with 9:54 to play and the Blue Devils holding a 14-point lead.
"He said the basketball gods were doing this to us for a reason," Capel said. "We handled it a lot better. We learned a lot from the Michigan game and went out today and got tougher in the same situation."
Krzyzewski said, "That loss helped us a lot because we didn't hang our heads. We took responsibility for the loss. We handled that well, and we got better at it."
Duke (7-2) was deadly early from three-point range and effective from the free-throw line in the final minutes.
Langdon scored 19 points for Duke, which made nine of 17 three-pointers. Price, who came into the game shooting 17 percent from behind the arc, was three for four from three-point range and scored 17 points. Capel, who was shooting 20 percent on threes, made two of three and had 13 points. His three-point play gave the Blue Devils their biggest lead, 64-49 with 9:54 left.
Villanova (6-1) didn't get closer than seven points the rest of the way. Duke made 14 of 17 free throws over the final 2:20 and was 26 of 33 in the second half.