Isaiah Evans scored 21 points to power No. 4 Duke to a 70-54 road win at Pittsburgh on Tuesday night.
Evans went 5 of 6 from 3-point range in the bounce-back victory for the Blue Devils (22-2, 11-1 Atlantic Coast Conference). Cameron Boozer contributed his 13th double-double of the season with 17 points and 10 rebounds, while Caleb Foster scored 14 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out five assists.
Roman Siulepa paced the Panthers (9-16, 2-10) with 19 points, and Barry Dunning Jr. scored 17. It was Pitt’s fourth consecutive loss and 10th in its last 12 games.
Pitt had a six-point lead early on, and still maintained a one-point advantage with less than three minutes remaining in the first half. Dunning scored 13 points in the opening period, while Duke struggled with its shooting from beyond the arc, hitting just 22.2% of its 3-pointers in the first 20 minutes. However, one of the 3-pointers the Blue Devils made was from Devin Harris, which capped off a 7-0 run to close the half with Duke up 35-29.
Duke turned up the tempo in the second half and went on to lead by as much as 18 points following a 14-5 run late in the game. That scoring surge began with a thunderous dunk by Boozer, then punctuated by the freshman phenom converting a 3-point play where he connected on a layup through contact and then knocked down the free throw.
Pitt made just one field goal in the final four minutes of play.
The Blue Devils dominated inside, outrebounding the Panthers 37-23 and outscoring them in the paint 36-22. After a hot shooting first half, Pitt made just 2 of 13 3-pointers in the second half while Duke knocked down 7 of 14, with four of those makes coming from Evans.
Duke played without starting center Patrick Ngongba, who was listed as questionable with a left hand injury coming into the game. Ultimately, the 6-foot-11 sophomore was sidelined while wearing a wrap on his hand on the bench.
“He’s doing better. He’s really tough, he played through it (against North Carolina on Saturday). The good news is we got the imaging and all that,” Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said on the Blue Devils’ pregame radio show. “Everything is intact and he’s okay, but there’s some stuff going on there with some soreness and we got to get him right and healthy.”
