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Parker, Duke cruise past Eastern Michigan

Dec 29, 2013 - 12:03 AM Durham, NC (SportsNetwork.com) - Freshman Jabari Parker scored 23 points to lead the ninth-ranked Duke Blue Devils to an 82-59 victory over Eastern Michigan at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Andre Dawkins nailed six 3-pointers and finished with a season-high 20 points for Duke (10-2), which extended the longest active home winning streak in the nation against non-conference opponents to 109 games.

Mike Talley paced the Eagles (7-4) with 20 points. Eastern Michigan has lost four of its last six games.

Parker scored Duke's first eight points during a seesaw start to the contest. The teams were tied at 10-10 when Dawkins nailed a trey to ignite an 8-0 run by the Blue Devils.

Eastern Michigan did pull within two and a Talley free throw trimmed the deficit to 24-21, but Duke went on another 8-0 burst shortly thereafter. The highlight of the run was Tyler Thornton feeding Parker for an alley-oop slam. A putback dunk by Rodney Hood made it 32-21 with 4:15 remaining.

The Blue Devils settled for a 37-27 halftime lead despite shooting only 37.9 percent.

"I thought throughout the first half, we were in striking distance, but we weren't able to rebound the basketball," said Eastern Michigan coach Rob Murphy.

Duke took control with a 15-1 surge in the second half.

Quinn Cook and Hood hit back-to-back threes during a run of 10 straight Duke points. Amile Jefferson capped the burst when he followed another Dawkins 3- pointer by sinking two free throws for a 58-36 Blue Devils lead just prior to the midway point.

Duke led by as many as 30 down the stretch.

"I thought we were a little more aggressive against the zone," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said of the adjustments in the second half. "We hit the middle. Kind of like the UCLA game, we kind of exploded against the zone and today we did the same thing. The defense kind of stayed throughout. I thought we did a really good job defensively today."

Game Notes

Parker has scored at least 20 points in 10 games this season ... Duke has won 24 straight home games and 24 consecutive games in the month of December ... Rasheed Sulaimon supplied 13 points for the Blue Devils ... Jefferson grabbed a career-high 14 rebounds ... Duke shot 41.9 percent in the second half ... The Blue Devils made 24-of-32 free throws and outrebounded the Eagles, 47-32 ... Cook finished with seven assists, two fewer than Eastern Michigan's total for the game ... Eastern Michigan beat the Blue Devils in the first round of the 1996 NCAA Tournament in the only previous meeting between these teams.