All Blue Devils again in the ACC
CHARLOTTE – Two weeks made quite a difference.
The end result was the same and Duke has an ACC championship to show for it.
Duke won the ACC championship by beating Virginia on Saturday night in the ACC championship at Spectrum Center.
Duke (32-2) wrapped up its 24th ACC championship, the most of any team in the league. North Carolina is second with 18. It’s the second straight season Duke has won both the regular-season and tournament titles.
There was no separation in this game.
It was a two-point Duke lead at halftime. Virginia took a lead 2½ minutes into the second half. There were five lead changes in the middle portion of the second half.
Virginia’s (29-5) last lead came at 60-58 with 6:49 left. Cameron Boozer had a three-point play on the following possession and Duke didn’t trail again. Boozer scored seven of his season-low 13 points in the final 6-ish minutes.
There were eight lead changes and four ties in the first half. It was, obviously, a different game than the one played two weeks earlier when Duke went wire-to-wire for a 26-point win.
Virginia’s largest lead of the first 20 minutes was six, and it was early at 12-6. But that was a kill shot — only the eighth one allowed by Duke this season.
Duke went four minutes between field goals early in the game. The Blue Devils scored on their first three possessions and then went ice cold. The last “possession” of the drought was Cameron Boozer throwing a full-court outlet pass after a made bucket to an unaware Darren Harris, it going out of bounds before he could get to the ball.
The Blue Devils got rolling when Cayden Boozer got going. He made a 3-pointer and had a fast-break dunk, going into halftime with 14 points — two short of his career high, which was set Friday night against Clemson.
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