Duke masters Virginia again

From combined dispatches

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No. 9 Duke 87, Virginia 65

DURHAM, N.C. — DeMarcus Nelson scored 20 points as the Blue Devils beat the Cavaliers last night.

Gerald Henderson added 18 points and Kyle Singler scored 13 for Duke (13-1, 1-0 ACC), which never trailed, led by double figures for the entire second half and hit 11 3-pointers.

Duke held Virginia, a 40-percent shooting team from 3-point range, to just 4-for-14 shooting from beyond the arc.

Sean Singletary scored 18 points, and Calvin Baker added 13 for Virginia (10-4, 0-1), which was denied its first victory at Cameron Indoor Stadium since a double-overtime win in 1995. Its four-game winning streak against ranked teams also was snapped.

The Blue Devils turned to their strong perimeter game to build an early lead. The ACC’s second-best 3-point-shooting team was 8-for-18 from long range in the first half.

Then, when the Cavaliers clamped down on the outside game, Duke simply broke down Virginia’s defense off the dribble, repeatedly slicing its way to second-half layups and dunks.

Nelson was 3-for-4 from 3-point range and scored at least 20 points for the third time in five games for Duke, which has won nine of 10 in the series.

Mamadi Diane added 11 points on 3-for-12 shooting for the Cavaliers.

Duke took a permanent double-figure lead late on Taylor King’s 3 in the final minutes of the first half and led by 20 with about 7½ minutes left on Singler’s fastbreak dunk off a nice pass from Greg Paulus.

Duke built a comfortable lead midway through the first half, using an 11-2 spurt to take its largest lead of the half. Nelson’s 3 from the corner made it 32-17 with about six minutes left in the first half.

After that, Virginia climbed within 10 only once — when Baker’s jumper pulled the Cavaliers within 38-29 at the 1:59 mark.

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