Men against boys
DePaul's freshmen no match for Elton and No. 1 Duke
Posted: Thursday February 25, 1999 01:16 AM
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Elton Brand was a madman, scoring 20 points and grabbing 14 rebounds in leading the Blue Devils over Lance Williams and the Blue Demons. AP |
CHICAGO (AP) - When Trajan Langdon gets cranking and Elton Brand
gets nasty around the basket, there aren't too many teams in the
country that can beat No. 1 Duke.
Certainly not DePaul and its phenom freshmen. Maybe not anybody,
the Blue Demons coach said.
"They're much scarier up close and personal than any tape could
ever describe," Pat Kennedy said after the Blue Devils routed his
young DePaul team 96-64 on Wednesday night.
"That's a team that's got to be the odds-on favorite to win it
all," he said. "There's no one right now competing at their level, including the Connecticuts and Michigan States and those
folks."
Langdon's 25 points led five Duke players in double figures, and
Elton Brand was brutal on defense, blocking four shots and grabbing
14 rebounds to go with his 20 points. Chicago native Corey Maggette
added 14 in front of 22,180 at the United Center, the largest crowd
ever to see a college basketball game in Illinois.
The Blue Devils had a 47-35 edge on the boards.
"We did a tremendous job on the defensive end," Langdon said.
"We came ready to play."
Duke (28-1) tied a school record with its 23rd straight victory.
Next up: Becoming the first team to go 16-0 in the ACC. The Blue
Devils can accomplish that goal by beating North Carolina on
Saturday.
Quentin Richardson led DePaul (16-10) with 21 points and Willie
Coleman added 14. Bobby Simmons, who came into the game averaging
11 points a game, had just two for DePaul, which was a dismal
23-of-70 (33 percent) from the floor.
"We're a really good basketball team, and when we started
rebounding and running, we knocked the starch out of them," Duke
coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "That's a sign of a mature team. We've
become that."
DePaul, meanwhile, is still growing. The Blue Demons sauntered
into the United Center full of confidence from a five-game winning
streak, which dated back to an overtime upset of then-No. 3
Cincinnati. The freshman trio of Richardson, Simmons and Lance
Williams was playing so well the Blue Demons practically had their
bags packed for their first trip to the NCAA tournament since 1992.
Not so fast, boys, the Blue Devils said. Get past us first.
And Langdon made sure that didn't happen. The senior, still
sporting a nasty cut on his lip from last Saturday's game at
Clemson, ripped off nine points in a 90-second span as Duke jumped
out to a 13-7 lead with 16:40 left in the first half.
The last of his little run was a huge 3-pointer from well behind
the NBA line.
After a hook shot from Williams, Duke went on an 18-8 run that
broke the game open, taking a 31-17 lead with 7:20 left in the
half.
"They came out, obviously, confident, playing hard," Langdon
said. "When we got some shots and started boarding and running and
got into transition and got about a 12-point lead, you kind of saw
it in their eyes that their confidence decreased."
And just for good measure, Duke opened the second half with
3-pointers from Langdon, William Avery and Langdon again during a
19-4 run.
"Our goal is to get our lead, get our run and kick it up from
there," Brand said. "Once we got the lead, we try not to look
back."
While beating Duke is never easy, DePaul's horrid shooting and
carelessness with the ball didn't help. The Blue Demons turned the
ball over 15 times, leading to 23 points for Duke.
Despite the big loss, Kennedy said he thinks his team could
still be in the running for the NCAA.
"They've done this to a lot of people this year," Kennedy said
of Duke. "This team right now is just playing at an incredible
level."
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