NC State Wolfpack at Duke Blue Devils

No. 7 Duke sets up date with No. 6 Virginia in ACC final

Because No. 7 Duke finally figured out how to slow Warren when it counted, the Blue Devils are playing for an ACC championship.

Parker scored 20 points and the Blue Devils beat Warren and North Carolina State 75-67 on Saturday in an ACC tournament semifinal.

Rasheed Sulaimon added 16 points for the third-seeded Blue Devils (26-7) while Rodney Hood had 14 points and keyed the defensive effort against Warren, the ACC player of the year.

Warren led the league with an average of 24.9 points while Parker was second at 19.2 points per game.

In this one, Warren scored 21 points but was just 4 of 13 after halftime while facing a barrage of double teams.

"Rodney did a good job on him just to keep him to 21," coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "You can overcoach, and we overcoached our preparation. He was doing what we asked him to do, and it wasn't working, and he said, 'Coach, let me just play him my normal way.' That was better."

Duke earned its 31st championship game appearance and first since 2011.

The Blue Devils will play No. 6 Virginia on Sunday. Duke's 69-65 win in January stood as the Cavaliers' lone conference loss until Maryland beat them last week.

"NC State was fighting for their lives," Sulaimon said.

Lennard Freeman had 13 points and Anthony "Cat" Barber finished with 12 for NC State, which for much of the day looked capable of pulling off a second straight resume-enhancing upset after knocking off No. 11 Syracuse in the quarterfinals.

"I hope they take a look at our team and see how much better we are than we were at the beginning," NC State coach Mark Gottfried said. "If you win at Pitt, beat Syracuse and beat Duke, hell, you're about a Final Four team then. I think we showed that we certainly belong in the field of 68."

The Wolfpack might have gotten one more upset win, had it not been for Duke's 20-7 run in the second half that was fueled by three NC State turnovers and a spate of missed shots.

"I'm not going to force it to get past two people," said Barber, who said he was double-teamed as well. "They just did a great job of defending. ... They just kept their composure throughout the game."

Parker scored six points during the burst that pushed the Blue Devils' lead into double figures for the first time.

A botched lob to NC State big man Jordan Vandenberg led to an open court the other way for Parker, and his authoritative dunk over a sidestepping Barber made it 49-45 with 15 minutes left. Quinn Cook ended the run with a 3 that made it 61-49 with about 9½ minutes remaining.

"We got a lot of easy baskets from our defense, and once we got into a rhythm, our shots started falling down and we got rolling," Sulaimon said.

NC State never could string together a game-threatening run after that, and the Wolfpack's best chance down the stretch came when they closed to 67-59 on Freeman's jumper with about 3 minutes left.

At least early in this one, though, the Blue Devils once again couldn't stop anyone.

NC State hit 13 of 15 shots over an 11-minute stretch and scored on 15 of 16 possessions, with the only empty trip in that span coming when Warren missed the front end of a one-and-one.

"First half, neither team could stop one another," Krzyzewski said. "In the second half, we just played better defense."

How can I watch NC State vs. Duke?

• TV Channel: NC State at Duke 2021 College Basketball, week 19, is broadcasted on ESPN.
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