After steamrolling through the league in the regular season, Duke Basketball arrived in Charlotte looking to continue the trend against heavy underdog Georgia Tech. However, March is a different animal as the Blue Devils quickly found out before rallying to advance to the ACC Tournament’s semifinal round.
Kon Knueppel scored a career-high 28 to go along with five rebounds and eight assists while Isaiah Evans added 14 to help the Blue Devils (29-3) beat the Yellow Jackets (17-16) 78-70.
Head coach Jon Scheyer’s team fell behind by as many 14 in the first half, enduring a frigid start on offense that included 13 consecutive misses from the outside as the Yellow Jackets went up 26-12 after 16 minutes of action.
The Blue Devils seemed to being to find their footing after the last media stoppage of the first half, getting a layup by Kon Knueppel followed by a three pointer from Isaiah Evans to cut the lead to nine with three minutes left.
However on the next possession freshman phenom Cooper Flagg went down with what appeared to be an ankle injury, and Georgia Tech hit a three to push the lead back to double figures. From there the Blue Devils were able to close on a 12-5 run to slice the halftime deficit to five at 31-26.
But the story and focus was on Flagg who was seen leaving the locker room in a wheelchair, being escorted to receive additional medical evaluation. When asked for an update, head coach Jon Scheyer simply noted his star would not be available for the remainder of the contest.
Out of the break the Blue Devils got a three pointer from Knueppel followed by a pair of free throws from Khaman Maluach to tie the game at 31 inside of the first two minutes. Two possessions later Sion James knocked down an open look followed up by a Maluach layup to cap off a 10-0 run to give Duke its largest lead of the game at 36-31, forcing a Yellow Jacket timeout.
Shortly after Duke re-took the lead, Flagg was seen returning to the court under his own power and without a brace or cast. The Duke freshman was ruled out for the remainder of the game.
With their star unavailable, Duke turned to their perimeter attack behind Knueppel and Evans, the former hitting his second three of the game with 11:03 remaining to push the Blue Devil advantage to 48-40 and forcing the Yellow Jackets to burn another timeout in hopes of stopping the Duke momentum.
It didn’t work.
Four minutes later Evans knocked down his fourth three pointer of the game to give Duke an 11 point lead, giving the Blue Devils six makes in their last eight attempts over a seven minute period while setting themselves up for the stretch run.
During that run the Blue Devils were able to match the Yellow Jackets basket for basket with Knueppel scoring or assisting on five straight baskets, pushing the Duke lead to 65-55 at the 3:42 with an assist to Maluach for a dunk.
Maluach finished with 14 points, nine rebounds, and four blocks.
Next up for Duke will be a game against the winner of North Carolina and Wake Forest on Friday night at 7PM EST.
