ORLANDO, Fla. — No. 12 Duke hit Oral Roberts with an opening punch Thursday night and, when the second half began, drilled the Golden Eagles with another to remove any thoughts of an upset.
The Blue Devils scored the game’s first 15 points, following that up with the first 10 after halftime on the way to a 74-51 NCAA Tournament East Region win at Amway Center.
Seeded No. 5 in the East, Duke (27-8) won its 10th consecutive game and advanced to Saturday’s second round to play either No. 4 seed Tennessee or No. 13 seed Louisiana.
No. 12 seed Oral Roberts (30-5) entered the game with the nation’s longest winning streak at 17 games, having not lost since Jan. 9. But the Golden Eagles were no match for the ACC champion Blue Devils, who led 40-23 at halftime and quickly pushed their lead to 27 points at 50-23 just four minutes into the second half.
Junior guard Jeremy Roach, fresh off scoring a career-best 23 points in Duke’s 59-49 win over Virginia in the ACC tournament final last Saturday night, poured in 23 points again to lead the Blue Devils against Oral Roberts.
Freshman Dariq Whitehead finished with 13 points for Duke, which shot 48.4% and committed only seven turnovers.
Duke’s defense stymied the Golden Eagles’ normally potent offense, holding Oral Roberts to 30.2% shooting. The Golden Eagles entered the game shooting 47.9% for the season.
Senior guard Max Abmas, star of Oral Roberts’ run to the Sweet 16 in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, scored 12 points on 4 of 15 shooting against Duke while committing five turnovers. He entered the game averaging 22.2 points per game this season.
Though they’ve averaged 84.2 points per game this season, it took the Golden Eagles eight minutes and four seconds of play before they scored their first points against Duke.
The Blue Devils took the drama out of their tournament opener quickly.
While Oral Roberts missed its first 12 shots, the Blue Devils rattled off 15 consecutive points to take control.
Five different Duke players scored during that stretch, starting with a Dereck Lively dunk and ending with reserve center Ryan Young’s spin move to score inside with 12:16 to put the Blue Devils up 15-0.
Duke’s led never dropped below 12 points from there.
When Roach scored on a reverse layup in traffic under the rim with 1:06 left until halftime, Duke’s lead grew to 20 points for the first time at 38-18.
Roach led Duke with 13 first-half points while Whitehead tallied 10. The Blue Devils shot 50% in the first half (16 of 32), while making four 3-pointers.
The Golden Eagles were just 9 of 34 (26.5%) in the first half, making only 3 of 15 3-pointers.
