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GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) -- Jason Williams and Carlos Boozer had
towels over their shoulders with 8 minutes left. Mike Dunleavy had
bags of ice on his knees and Mike Krzyzewski barely moved from his
seat.
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No Shock City as Duke easily ran past Winthrop. It was simply too much Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer and company as Duke moves on to an interesting matchup with a Notre Dame that will fired up. It's the ACC against the Big East.
Duke had to be happy to see USC knocked out of the region, upset by UNC-Wilmington. That might have been an interesting Sweet 16 matchup between Duke and USC, but it won't happen. |
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It all signaled another NCAA Tournament first-round blowout for
Duke on Thursday night.
The Blue Devils, the top seed in the South Regional, made 12 of
their first 13 shots to race past Winthrop 84-37 just hours after
the day's other No. 1 seed -- Kansas -- struggled with Holy Cross.
The winning margin matched the fifth largest in tournament
history.
"No complaints with the first half," Dunleavy said. "That's
the way you start these things off."
Boozer and Williams scored 19 points each, and Dunleavy added 18
as the defending national champions (30-3) won their seventh
straight NCAA game by double digits and gave Krzyzewski his seventh
30-win season.
The Blue Devils advanced to play Notre Dame and former
Krzyzewski assistant Mike Brey, whose club knocked off Charlotte
82-63.
"We've come into this tournament not trying to hold any bullets
back," said a well-rested Williams, who played a season-low 20
minutes. "We want to shoot every one we have and go out there and
play our style."
That included one awesome 24-0 run.
Winthrop coach Gregg Marshall was asked if he felt powerless
watching the Blue Devils from his bench.
"The solace I can take is that I'm not the only guy to go
against coach K and feel that way," Marshall said. "Even though
it was embarrassing at times -- downright embarrassing -- we
continued to fight. Duke played a dynamite game."
Greg Lewis led the Eagles with 15 points.
Marshall gave his wife a thumbs-up prior to tipoff and blew a
kiss to his 3-year-old daughter Maggie in the stands, who blew one
back.
But that's the most fun Marshall would have all night with his
club playing just 85 miles from campus.
The 16th-seeded Eagles (19-12), the Big South champion a fourth
straight season, turned the ball over five times in the opening
2:24 to fall into a hole early as Williams, a first-team
All-American, hit an NBA-range 3-pointer and turned a steal into a
reverse layup to get things going for the Blue Devils.
Boozer was also a key in Duke's early surge. The 6-foot-9,
280-pound center had hit 76 of 91 shots over a 10-game period
coming in, and made his first five against Winthrop to help break
it open against a team that didn't start a player taller than 6-6.
Boozer's fastbreak slam from Williams less than 8 minutes in
gave Duke a 27-7 lead and Winthrop was well on its way to the same
fate as Radford, Florida A&M, Lamar and Monmouth -- Duke's other
first-round victims since 1998.
The four-time Atlantic Coast Conference champion beat those
teams by an average of 37 points.
It was worse for the Eagles.
"We're not the only team Duke has dominated," Tywan Harris
said. "They beat N.C. State by 30 in the ACC tourney. We really
wanted to come out and give it our best effort, but it just didn't
work out."
Winthrop went scoreless for a 7{-period stretch as a Dunleavy
alley-oop from Dahntay Jones put the Blue Devils up by 30 more than
8 minutes before the break as Duke rolled to a 52-15 halftime lead.
The 37-point margin at the break was the largest for Duke in 96
NCAA tourney games. The previous best was 35 against Connecticut in
1964.
While the Blue Devils shot 64 percent in the first half,
Winthrop's stats likely made Marshall cringe. His club missed 24 of
its 30 attempts, including 10 straight misfires from beyond the
arc, and had 15 turnovers.
"I expected them to take the ball out of my hands, and our
point guard's hands," said Pierre Wooten. "That's typical of Duke
teams. We didn't handle it very well."
Duke's big three -- Boozer, Dunleavy and Williams -- combined for
45 of their team's 52 halftime points as the sellout crowd sat back
in awe of some picture-perfect basketball from a program that has
finished first in the final Associated Poll a record four straight
seasons.
Krzyzewski had his subs in early in the second half and slowed
the game down as Boozer, Dunleavy and Williams combined to go
23-for-34 from the field and Duke improved to 74-22 in the NCAAs -- improving the best mark in college basketball history with little
trouble.
Duke is also 17-3 in its last 20 NCAA games. | 
