Virginia Tech knocks off No. 5 Duke in ACC opener
No. 5 Duke's ACC season is off to a rocky start.
The Blue Devils (12-2, 0-1) fell behind by double digits early and could never come back, falling on the road Saturday at surprising Virginia Tech 89-75, which ran its record to 12-1 (1-0 ACC). The Hokies put six players in double figures and took advantage of the Blue Devils time and again in transition.
Justin Bibbs broke out of a season-long slump, hitting six of nine from the field, including a season-high four three-pointers for the Hokies, who won their eighth consecutive game. Virginia Tech snapped a nine-game losing streak to Duke.
“Our confidence is sky high right now,” Bibbs said. “I feel like we can play against anybody, with anybody.”
Hokies fans closed out the game by chanting at Duke, "Over-rated!"
“I don’t think we’re to the point that we’ve played 40 minutes,” Virginia Tech coach Buzz Williams said. “But I don’t know that any coach would say in game 13, ‘Yeah, that’s perfect.’ I think we have a long way to go and the weight of this game is the same as the weight of our next game.”
The Blue Devils were playing for the first time since the suspension of star guard Grayson Allen, who will sit out indefinitely after an incident on Dec. 21 when he intentionally tripped Steven Santa Ana of Elon. It was the third such incident in less than a year for Allen.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said that Allen is no longer one of the Blue Devils' captains, but he did not provide any details on when Allen might return from suspension.
“Right now, I don’t want to talk about Grayson,” Krzyzewski said. “He was part of the loss today by not being there. Instead of tri-captains, we’ve eliminated him from being a captain of the team. Only Amile (Jefferson) and Matt (Jones) are doing that. It’s unfortunate for any team to have interruptions. Sometimes you have no control of them, like an injury or sickness. Then sometimes something like this happens. We’ve had a lot of interruptions. We have to stop having interruptions.”
Luke Kennard (20.4 ppg), who has been superb for Duke, led all scorers with 34 points.
“I really feel like the two teams played like the way they’ve been playing. Virginia Tech has been playing really good basketball — continuity, good eight-man rotation, feed off of one another,” Krzyzewski said. “We played like we’ve been playing — without continuity. We haven’t played well since before exams, and that continued.”
BIG PICTURE
Duke: Allen — he preseason ACC player of the year selection, averages 16.0 points a game — might have helped the Blue Devils on the offensive end, but Duke needs to shore up its traditionally tough defense. The Blue Devils gave up season highs in points, shooting percentage and three-point shooting percentage. The Hokies shot 61.5% (8 of 13) from beyond the three-point arc.
Virginia Tech: The Hokies have received votes in every Associated Press poll this season, but hadn’t cracked The top 25. They most certainly will when the latest poll is released early next week.
UP NEXT
Duke will look to rebound when it returns home to face Georgia Tech on Wednesday. The Yellow Jackets were picked to finish 14th out of 15 teams in the ACC’s preseason poll.
Virginia Tech travels to Raleigh, North Carolina for just its second true road game of the season when it takes on North Carolina State on Wednesday. The Hokies haven’t won in Raleigh since 2011.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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