• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Johnson's layup lifts Wake Forest over Duke

Jan 29, 2009 - 6:54 AM WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Ticker) -- Wake Forest's new inbounds play all but assured that there will be a new No. 1 team next week.

James Johnson scored the game-winning layup with under one second to play, lifting fourth-ranked Wake Forest to a 70-68 victory over No. 1 Duke in an Atlantic Coast Conference thriller on Wednesday.

Duke, which never led during the second half, tied the game at 68-68 on Gerald Henderson's jumper with 9.8 seconds to play. Jeff Teague raced down court and missed a layup in traffic, but Henderson was called for traveling when he fell after grabbing the rebound, giving Wake Forest the ball out of bounds under Duke's basket with 2.6 seconds to play.

Inbounding the ball, L.D. Williams waited for Johnson to set a screen in the right corner before the sophomore big man rolled toward the hoop. As the Blue Devils were too late to react, Johnson received the pass and scored with eight-tenths of a second to play, giving the Demon Deacons the win.

"Coach (Dino Gaudio) called time out and drew it up. We had never run it before," Johnson said of the winning play. "We knew everybody was going to key on Jeff Teague. He's the one who scores and puts buckets up for us so he said watch out for the slip. I slipped it and L.D. made a great pass - it was perfect - and I finished the play."

Freshman Al-Farouq Aminu had 15 points and 10 rebounds and Johnson finished with 13 and 12 to lead Wake Forest (17-1, 4-1 ACC).

"I just thought it was a great basketball game," Gaudio said. "I just thought it was a terrific game with two teams that played very, very hard. And we just had the ball the last possession and were able to score, that's all. We were very fortunate to win."

Kyle Singler scored 22 points and grabbed 13 rebounds to pace Duke (18-2, 5-1), which had its 10-game winning streak snapped.

It is the third straight week that the top-ranked team has lost after Wake Forest and Pittsburgh went down in the last two weeks, respectively. The third-ranked team, Pittsburgh, lost to No. 21 Villanova on Wednesday, while second-ranked Connecticut won at DePaul and could be in line for the top spot with another win on Saturday.

"It was a heck of a game for us to play in and obviously, we would have loved to win it," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "Losing the game on the last play makes it hard a little bit more. Sometimes getting hurt is good."

The Demon Deacons' length and athleticism bothered the Blue Devils, who shot 33 percent (22-of-66) from the floor, including 4-of-22 from the arc.

"I thought our defense was really good," said Gaudio, whose club was coming off its first loss to Virginia Tech last Wednesday. "I think someone said to me that this was their lowest field-goal percentage of the year for them. I thought we did a good job of guarding the three-point line, which we did. A couple times, Singler got away from us. (I'm) really happy for our kids."

Wake Forest led by five at the break and kept Duke at a distance for most of the second half.

Teague knocked down a jumper and Aminu threw down a dunk in transition - off a between-the-legs pass from Ishamel Smith - as the Demon Deacons extended the lead to 52-43 with 11:51 remaining.

Duke closed within six but Wake Forest scored seven straight to take its largest advantage at 61-48 with 8:48 to play.

However, the Blue Devils refused to go away and came within 65-60 as Nolan Smith made all three free throws with 4:06 left.

"I thought our guys drove more aggressively and we hit some shots," Krzyzewski said of his team down the stretch. "We're still not shooting the way I hope we'll be able to shoot. I thought there was a fierce determination on the part of that group of kids. That was neat to see."

Singler's 3-pointer made it a 67-63 score with 2:49 left and Jon Scheyer eventually cut it to 68-66 with 1:13 remaining.

After the Demon Deacons failed to score on their next possession, Scheyer chased down his own rebound off a missed 3-pointer and the Blue Devils called a time out, which set up Henderson's jumper to tie the game.

Henderson finished with 20 points and eight rebounds for Duke.