ACC Wednesday Hoops: Big 10 edges ACC 6-5 in Challenge

Final-night victories by Duke, Maryland and Boston College wasn't enough to put the ACC back on top in the ACC/Big 10 Challenge, as Purdue edged Virginia Tech in overtime to give the Big 10 a 6-5 advantage in this year's series.

Freshman Irving leads No. 1 Duke past No. 6 Spartans: It didn't take Duke's Nolan Smith long during practice to notice something special about Kyrie Irving.

"He'll be like, 'Get out of the way, I've got it,'" Smith said. "You don't really hear that too often, when a freshman will tell two seniors on the wings to get out of the way. We have no problem letting him do it."

Easy to see why.

Irving scored a season-high 31 points and led No. 1 Duke past No. 6 Michigan State 84-79 on Wednesday night in the marquee matchup of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

Smith added 17 points and Kyle Singler scored 15 for the Blue Devils (7-0), who shot 47 percent and turned 20 Michigan State turnovers into 28 points. Duke used a 12-2 spurt midway through the second half to take a double-figure lead, then held off the Spartans down the stretch by hitting 9 of 12 free throws in the final 1:15 to seal its second victory over a top-10 team in eight days.

"I think every win we have is a statement," Irving said. "We want to show the world, every time we step on the court, we're the best."

Korie Lucious scored 20 points and Draymond Green added 10 of his 16 in the final minute for Michigan State (5-2). The Spartans shot 49 percent, were held to one field goal during a critical 7-minute stretch that coincided with Duke's run but otherwise hung tight with the reigning national champions.

"We showed at times, we had some resilience tonight, we showed some fight in us," Spartans coach Tom Izzo said. "We competed better, and (when) we got down, we came back against ... (what) I think is the best team in college basketball."

The Spartans put a few of the Blue Devils' impressive winning streaks to the test. But ultimately, Duke found a way to win its 17th straight game dating to last season's national title run, claim its 23rd straight victory at Cameron Indoor Stadium and run its NCAA-best streak of nonconference wins at home to 81.

Mike Krzyzewski also claimed the 875th victory of his Hall of Fame career to move one win behind Adolph Rupp, who's in third place on the all-time list.

Irving, whose previous scoring high was 17 points, had 18 in the first half. He became the fourth Duke freshman to score 30 points and the first since J.J. Redick in 2003. He was sharp from the outside and was effective getting to the rim while drawing contact, finishing 13 of 16 from the free throw line.

Though he did much of the heavy lifting against the Spartans, he insists the Blue Devils are not yet his team.

"It's not one single person," Irving said. "Duke basketball, it's a collective effort. It's a brotherhood here. It's not my team."

For much of the way, little came easy for the Blue Devils. Michigan State closed to 69-64 on Durrell Summers' dunk with 3½ minutes left before Singler stuck back Irving's miss just before the shot clock expired.

"We knew they weren't going to go away," Singler said. "It shows how good we are, I guess, right now, confidence-wise, and being able to execute towards the end of the game."

Mason Plumlee finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds for Duke, which won the first meeting between the teams since the 2005 regional semifinals and hasn't lost in the regular season to the Spartans since 1958.

It was a tight one throughout, and the Blue Devils' only chance to get any separation came during Michigan State's drought midway through the half. Summers pulled the Spartans to 49-47 with a 3 with 14½ minutes left, but the next few minutes belonged to Duke.

Irving started the run with a free throw, and Singler hit two 3s during the burst — capping it by pump-faking Green in the corner, taking one step left and swishing it to make it 61-49 with 9:21 left.

Meanwhile, the Spartans — who entered averaging 17 turnovers — made the kinds of mistakes that usually prove problematic at Cameron. They turned it over six times during a stretch of eight possessions during Duke's run.

"We gave it our all, but like I said, it's turnovers," Lucious said. "If we keep our turnovers down, I think we can be one of the best teams in the country. We already are, but our turnovers are stopping us from doing that right now."

Kalin Lucas added 14 points and Summers finished with 11 for Michigan State, which always seems to draw a tough assignment in this made-for-TV event.

This was the second straight year they had to face the reigning national champion on its home court. North Carolina claimed an 89-82 victory last year against the Spartans, who trailed by 19 in that one. And a year earlier, Michigan State suffered a 35-point loss to the Tar Heels at Ford Field.

Boston College downs Indiana, 88-76: Junior Reggie Jackson scored 27 points and senior Biko Paris equaled his career high with 19 points to lead Boston College to an 88-76 win over Indiana before 5,329 fans in Conte Forum at Chestnut Hill, MA.

Freshman Danny Rubin tallied 10 points, including three three-point field goals in a five-minute span of the second half, to lift the Eagles.

BC (5-2) built a 14-point halftime lead and withstood a furious Indiana rally that twice brought the Hoosiers within one point, before regaining control in the game's final six minutes.

Indiana (6-1), which shot a blistering 63.0 percent from the field in the second half, trimmed the BC margin to one point at 60-59 with 7:21 to play. Rubin answered with the first of his three treys to push the BC lead back to four points.

Wisconsin Blasts Wolfpack, 87-48: Wisconsin's defense had another stifling performance. This time, Jon Leuer and Jordan Taylor made sure the Badgers held up their end of the bargain on offense, too.

After a string of poor shooting performances in a holiday tournament, Wisconsin hit half its attempts Wednesday to hand North Carolina State its worst loss in 11 years, 87-48 in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

Leuer scored 22 points and had 11 rebounds, Taylor added 21 points and Wisconsin used a 23-0 run straddling halftime to rout the Wolfpack.

"Jon was being more aggressive, everybody was being more aggressive," Taylor said. "I think it was just a team effort as far as aggressiveness goes."

Wisconsin (5-2) hit 28 of 56 shots from the field and rebounded from a loss to Notre Dame in the finals of the Old Spice Classic in Orlando, Fla. on Sunday night. Defensively, the Badgers held the Wolfpack (4-2) scoreless for more than 10 minutes and limited them to 31 percent shooting.

Wisconsin hasn't lost consecutive games since January 2009 and is 70-5 at the Kohl Center against nonconference opponents under coach Bo Ryan.

N.C. State didn't help itself much, missing 11 straight shots and committing seven turnovers to fall behind 52-21 before Scott Wood's steal and layup ended the stretch with 16:24 left.

"I don't think we handled it well, I don't think we handled it well at all," N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe said. "Tentative, bad decisions, a couple of times just not ready to make the pass that was there on time."

It was the Wolfpack's worst beating since a 46-point loss at Maryland in 1999.

Hokies fall in OT to Purdue: JuJuan Johnson started fast, and finished even better.

Purdue's big man scored 29 points, including a go-ahead 15-footer with 1:27 left in overtime, and the 22nd-ranked Boilermakers beat Virginia Tech 58-55 on Wednesday night, clinching the ACC/Big Ten Challenge for the Big Ten for the second straight season.

The winning shot was nothing special, except that it went in, he said.

"I just set a screen and popped out to an open spot and one of the guys found me, and it went down," said the 6-foot-10 Johnson, who finished 11 of 24 from the field.

Johnson's basket with 9 seconds left in regulation forced overtime for the Boilermakers (6-1), who were coming off an 11-point loss to Richmond in the Chicago Invitational.

He was just as excited about the job teammates Lewis Jackson and Kelsey Barlow did harassing ACC scoring leader Malcolm Delaney into a 2-for-18 shooting night. In their previous game, the same two were embarrassed, allowing 28 points to Richmond's Kevin Anderson.

"That was huge," Johnson said of their effort Wednesday. "We definitely needed that."

Delaney, who also turned the ball over with 3.3 seconds left in overtime and the Hokies trailing 57-55, said his shot has been feeling good, but the results didn't show it.

"That's probably the most frustrated I've ever been," he said.

The Hokies (4-3), in their first game after a five-game road trip, trailed much of the game, used two short bursts in the second half to build small leads and then lost them.

Coach Seth Greenberg bristled at the notion that Delaney was to blame.

"Good teammates pick each other up," he said. "Our team should take responsibility as a group. ... Our margin of error is small, so it's hard to overcome if anyone had a bad night."

Terps pull away from Nittany Lions: Maryland had a 6-foot-10 difference-maker to help pull away from cold-shooting Penn State.

Center Jordan Williams had 15 points and 11 rebounds and the Terps overcame a slow start in a sloppy 62-39 win on Wednesday night in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

Dino Gregory, Sean Mosley and Terrell Stoglin had 10 points each for Maryland (6-2), playing their first true road game of the season. They had 12 first-half turnovers — six alone in the first five minutes — Wednesday, but held Penn State to 14 of 68 shooting (21 percent) on the night.

Penn State missed 54 shots — or seven more than taken by Maryland all night (23 of 47 for 49 percent). The Terps held a comfortable 19-point lead by midway through the second half.

"We had to play more intense defense," Williams said. "In the second half, we knew what they were going to do and we adjusted to it really well. That's why we pushed the lead up as far as we did."

Talor Battle had 21 points for the Nittany Lions (5-2) in what was billed as the school's biggest home nonconference game since the Jordan Center opened in 1996. It was a missed opportunity for a team trying to build interest on campus and momentum following an 11-20 campaign last year.

"Definitely, definitely, we're disappointed, but like I keep reiterating, you've got to move on," Battle said. "Now we've got to get the rest of the nonconference games and win some big games in conference play."

Both sides were sloppy, but Maryland clamped down defensively, and the Nittany Lions couldn't hit shots when open. Williams and Stoglin combined for 12 points in a 14-2 run to open a 19-point lead midway through the second half.

Williams posted his sixth double-double of the season. He was a handful up front, especially in the second half against a Penn State frontline in foul trouble much of the night.

After falling behind 7-0 early, the Terps controlled the tempo with tough defense and physical play on Battle, the Nittany Lions' do-everything guard.

"Penn State did a good job of coming out and sticking it to us," Maryland coach Gary Williams said.

Coach Ed DeChellis' club was active on the boards, finishing with 20 offensive rebounds, including 12 in the first half. But the Nitttany Lions managed just eight second-chance points all night, and just 10 off the Terps' 17 total turnovers.

Penn State also shot just 11 percent (3 of 27) from the 3-point arc.