Duke Blue Devils at Wake Forest Demon Deacons

No. 4 Duke forces 21 turnovers, beats Wake Forest 84-70

The Blue Devils forced 21 turnovers in Tuesday night's 84-70 victory over the Demon Deacons.

By their own high standards, this counts as an off night for an offense that is the nation's second-most efficient in the Pomeroy rankings. And they were outrebounded 37-31 by a Wake Forest team with two 7-footers in the rotation.

It didn't really matter with the defense playing like this.

"We've still got our defense, we've got our rebounding on some nights and then we also have our offense," guard Grayson Allen said. "So on any given night, everything has to be there. Rebounding and offense wasn't there ... but our defense was, and that's got to be consistent."

Wendell Carter Jr. had 23 points and 12 rebounds and Marvin Bagley III had 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Blue Devils (18-2, 6-2 Atlantic Coast Conference), who built a 20-point lead with their defense and kept Wake Forest at arm's length the rest of the way.

Doral Moore had 18 points and 12 rebounds before fouling out with 2:18 left for Wake Forest (8-12, 1-7), which has lost six in a row and eight of nine. Brandon Childress scored 16 of his 18 points in the second half.

"We didn't do ourselves any favors by how we handled the ball in the first half," coach Danny Manning said. "That hole's probably too much to overcome."

BIG PICTURE

Wake Forest: The Demon Deacons have lost two home games to Top 5 opponents in a little over 48 hours, after Virginia earned a 10-point win at Joel Coliseum on Sunday night. This was a largely discouraging step back for Wake Forest with leading scorer Bryant Crawford finishing with 10 points but a season-worst eight turnovers. "I thought he came out and pressed a little bit and made some decisions that we regret and he regrets, too," Manning said.

INJURY REPORT

Wake Forest didn't have its top sixth man with guard Keyshawn Woods out with a lingering knee injury. Woods is the team's second-leading scorer, averaging 13.4 points. For Duke, backup big man Marques Bolden (knee sprain) missed his sixth straight game.

STAT LINE

RECORD BOOK

UP NEXT

Duke: Hosts No. 2 Virginia on Saturday.

Wake Forest: Travels to Louisville on Saturday night.

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