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Paulus sparks Duke over Wake Forest

Jan 19, 2007 - 6:49 AM DURHAM, North Carolina (Ticker) -- Greg Paulus got Duke off to a fast start and that was more than enough against Wake Forest.

Paulus scored 14 of his 17 points in the first half to lead the 17th-ranked Blue Devils to a 62-40 victory over the Demon Deacons in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Duke (15-3, 2-2 ACC) beat Wake Forest for the 10th straight time at home, settling the contest in the first 20 minutes.

A pair of 3-pointers by Paulus got the Blue Devils out to a 16-6 lead and, after the Demon Deacons got within three points, Paulus connected twice more from the arc to stretch the advantage to 35-21 at halftime.

"(Paulus) and Jon (Scheyer) are our two best shooters," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "For the year, he is either in the high 40s in 3-point shooting or right at 50. ... We want him to shoot the ball. In order to shoot it, though, you have to play with your confidence in other areas.

"I think he was forgetting that he was a good shooter and was concentrating on other things. We needed his shots tonight. He was very, very good."

Duke scored the first four points after the break to push the lead to 18 and then breezed from there as the two teams turned in a brutal offensive showing in the second half.

At one point, the Blue Devils went more than seven minutes without a field goal and maintained a double-digit lead as the squads combined for nine points in the first seven minutes.

Paulus was 5-of-9 from the field in the first half, but missed his first eight shots after intermission before nailing his fifth 3-pointer with five seconds to play.

Wake had one brief flash in the second half. Harvey Hale and L.D. Williams buried shots from the arc to cut the deficit to 46-34 with 7:56 left, but the Demon Deacons then went without a field goal for over five minutes as the Blue Devils built the lead to 20.

"Our defense won the game," Krzyzewski said. "Points were hard to come by for both teams tonight so, Greg's performance in going 5-for-10 from three, especially his threes in the first half, and those few defensive plays that we turned into offense, really gave us that working margin.

"I was proud of our team that, when we could not score for a long period of time in the second half, it did not affect our defense. That's a really good sign for a team."

Josh McRoberts added 11 points for Duke, which finished 6-of-19 from the arc.

Kyle Visser was the only player in double figures with 12 points for Wake Forest (9-8, 1-4), which scored 19 points in the second half and shot 33 percent (16-of-48) for the game.

"It's pretty self-evident, I think," Demon Deacons coach Skip Prosser said. "You guys can all read this (box score). This is traditionally the best basketball conferences in the country and Duke's certainly traditionally one of the best basketball teams in the country.

"We had 12 turnovers I think in the first half and were 0-4 from the foul line, which basically translates into 14 turnovers. Pretty tough to stay competitive."