Less than dominant play in the regular season left Duke in its first-ever Tuesday game at the ACC tournament.
The Blue Devils against Boston College, however, looked like their usually dominant selves in advancing.
Saddled with its worst seed in ACC tournament history, No. 10 Duke drilled a season-high 15 3-pointers to pound the last-place Eagles, 86-51, in an ACC tournament first-round game at the Greensboro Coliseum.
The Blue Devils (12-11) advance to Wednesday’s second round to play No. 7 seed Louisville at 6:30 p.m. The Cardinals (13-6) beat Duke twice in the regular season, including an 80-73 overtime win at Durham on Feb. 27.
That loss began a three-game losing streak that greatly diminished any hopes the Blue Devils had to earn an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. Instead, Duke needs a winning streak in Greensboro — perhaps all the way to winning Saturday night’s ACC title game — to continue its streak of not missing an NCAA Tournament since 1995.
Duke played Tuesday like it plans to stick around for a while.
After hitting just 16 of 74 3-pointers (21.6%) the regular-season ending streak of losses to Louisville, Georgia Tech and North Carolina, the Blue Devils sank 15 of 32 (46.9%) to manhandle Boston College (4-16).
Freshman guard DJ Steward scored 17 points to lead Duke, hitting 3 of 8 3-pointers along the way. Freshman center Mark Williams added 13 points on the interior, while senior guard Jordan Goldwire sank four 3-pointers to score 12 points.
Duke never trailed, led 41-27 at halftime and shot 51.6% in the second half to turn the game into a rout.
Six different Duke players made 3-pointers and all of them hit at least two.
