No. 7 Duke knocked off by Miami in OT, 78-74
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}No. 7 Duke won four national championships over the years while being driven by what Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski says was energy, effort and hunger.
When the Blue Devils didn't necessarily have those things Sunday, they couldn't even beat Miami.
The Hurricanes stunned Duke 78-74 in overtime, dropping the Blue Devils out of their three-way tie for first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference and likely taking some of the luster off the Duke-North Carolina game later this week.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Blue Devils couldn't handle Miami's 6-foot-10, 284-pound Reggie Johnson, who scored five of his career-high 27 points in the overtime and added a season-high 12 rebounds.
But more distressing to Krzyzewski — once again — the Blue Devils played for too long without the all-out effort that has marked his program's rise among the nation's elite.
"A Duke team should play with energy for 40 minutes, or 45," Krzyzewski said. "Go outside right now and you look at the banners — there are quite a few of them up there. They were not won without energy, without hunger, with no complacency, with people really wanting it.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"And we've wanted it a lot, and we've won a lot. We're supposed to play hard and with energy all the time. Those are givens. Those should be givens."
Instead, the Blue Devils (19-4, 6-2) have lost two of their last three games at Cameron Indoor Stadium and have dropped multiple home games for the first time since going 15-4 there in 2006-07. Krzyzewski at the time compared his team's only home win in the past two weeks — a victory over St. John's — to an AAU game because of Duke's occasional lack of intensity.
Seth Curry scored 22 points and freshman Austin Rivers added 20. Mason Plumlee had 13 rebounds for Duke, which missed all six of its free throws in overtime and wound up being beaten at home by a Florida-based conference rival for the second time this season. Duke had its 45-game home winning streak snapped two weeks ago by No. 21 Florida State.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The biggest emphasis for us was to protect our home court," guard Quinn Cook said. "We've got to get better."
The Blue Devils had plenty of chances in the extra session. They trailed 75-74 with Cook on the line, but he missed two free throws with 27.2 seconds left.
After Johnson missed two foul shots with 26.2 seconds left to give Duke another shot, Cook missed badly on a running jumper with about 15 seconds left. DeQuan Jones extended Miami's lead to 77-74 with two foul shots with 12.9 seconds left.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Rivers and Ryan Kelly missed 3s in the final seconds and Johnson added a free throw with one-tenth of a second remaining to silence the subdued arena.
Miami outrebounded the Blue Devils 48-43 and outscored them 38-26 in the paint.
"I feel I had the hot hand the whole game," Johnson said, adding that new coach Jim Larranaga "was trying to ride me a whole lot. My teammates found me in good positions — catch and score."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Kenny Kadji added 15 points for the Hurricanes (14-7, 5-3), who blew a 16-point lead in the second half, then regrouped to claim their first big victory for their first-year coach.
"To come in here and play with the kind of poise we did, play the kind of defense we did — especially in the first half and in the overtime — was something that we can be very, very proud of," Larranaga said.
That poise gave Miami its first victory ever at Cameron and just its second win over Duke since joining the ACC. The Hurricanes are on their first four-game winning streak since 2008 and have won three consecutive ACC road games for the first time.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Johnson scored the Hurricanes' first four points in overtime before Malcolm Grant's open-court layup put Miami up 75-69 with 2:10 left.
Miami forced 14 turnovers and was cruising before going cold midway through the second half, managing only one field goal during the critical stretch that coincided with Duke's rally.
Miami went up by 16 points three times, the last on Kadji's open 3-pointer from the key that made it 53-37 with 14½ minutes left. But a putback by Johnson was the Hurricanes' only field goal for quite over the next 8½ minutes.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Duke, which missed 15 of 18 shots during the stretch that put it in such a huge hole, got equally hot during the 16-2 run led by Curry that put the Blue Devils right back in it.
"For 24 minutes, I just think we were not very good at all," Krzyzewski said. "We had no energy and they did. ... Then in the last 16 minutes of regulation, I thought we played extremely well and gave ourselves an opportunity to win."