By By JOEDY McCREARY, AP Sports Writer
DURHAM — DeMarcus Nelson scored 20 points to lead No. 9 Duke to a 87-65 victory over Virginia on Sunday night.
Gerald Henderson added 18 points and Kyle Singler scored 13 for the Blue Devils (13-1, 1-0 Atlantic Coast Conference), who never trailed, led by double figures for the entire second half, hit 11 3-pointers and shut down Virginia’s perimeter game.
Duke held the Cavaliers, a 40 percent shooting team from long range, to just 4-of-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 victory 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 hit 8-of-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 sliced its way to second-half layups and dunks.
Nelson was 3-of-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-of-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 7 1/2 minutes left on Singler’s fastbreak dunk off a pretty feed from Greg Paulus.
Duke built a comfortable lead midway through the first half, using an 11-2 spurt to take their largest lead of the half. Nelson’s 3 from the corner made it 32-17 with about 6 minutes before the break.
After that, Virginia climbed within 10 only once — when Baker’s jumper pulled the Cavaliers within 38-29 at the 1:59 mark. King knocked down a 3 over Ryan Pettinella 16 seconds later to give the Blue Devils a double-figure lead to stay.