For Duke, beating Texas, with its undefeated record and its three imposing frontcourt players, was supposed to be a difficult assignment. As it turned out, it was anything but.
On an afternoon when J.J. Redick was shooting so well, no one was going to beat Duke.
Redick, the Duke senior with the lethal jumper, had a career-high 41 points to lead the No. 1 Blue Devils to a 97-66 thumping of No. 2 Texas on Saturday at Continental Arena.
Redick tied a Duke record with nine 3-pointers and was 13-for-24 over all from the field.
"J.J. had a spectacular performance," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
"That's as good as they come. For me, coaching, it's up there with any game any kid has had for me."
Texas did its best to contain Redick, but he was perpetually in motion and somehow managed to get one open shot after another. When he was open, there was not much chance he was going to miss.
"I had 10 points in the first six minutes and I thought I might have something going today," Redick said.
Redick was relentless. With his team leading, 45-33, at halftime, he already had 22 points.
Texas made a bit of a run to cut the Duke lead to 47-42 with 17 minutes 48 seconds left, but Redick answered with a 3-pointer. Less than two minutes later, he nailed another 3-pointer to stretch Duke's lead to 13 points. Texas would not get any closer.
The Best Laid Plans ...
"I thought that Texas had a game plan to start the game that they were going to chase me around the screens," Redick said. "I was just able to create just enough space to put my shot up.
"Texas played good defense on many of my shots. I was just able to knock down some tough ones."
LaMarcus Aldridge was one of the few Texas players to have a good game. He had 21 points and six rebounds.
Like Duke, Texas was 8-0 coming into the game and has a roster loaded with talent.
Krzyzewski played down the matchup and said the team had a ceremony Thursday to exorcize the pressures of being No. 1, although he declined to give specifics.
He wanted his team to be loose and to treat Texas like any other opponent.
But Texas is not any other opponent. While Duke uses a three-guard lineup and has only one established frontcourt player in Shelden Williams, the Longhorns start three forwards averaging in double figures. The best may be Aldridge, who was averaging 17.5 points and 10.4 rebounds a game.
But Texas had to send out a less imposing lineup for much of the game after forward Brad Buckman, who averages 13.5 points, went to the sideline with an injured right calf and played just seven minutes.
Still, Texas seemed to have the firepower at least to give Duke a game.
The Blue Devils had played some of their poorest basketball of the season over their past two games, beating Virginia Tech by two points and Penn by a mere 13.
Tough Test
Krzyzewski said that his team had been mentally worn down during the week because of the pressures of exams and that he sensed it was about to put together one of its better efforts.
Williams, who had 23 points, said, "We knew we hadn't played our best basketball yet. This was our first game where everybody played well together.
"It just wasn't a couple of people playing well and holding the whole team up. This was a statement game for our team, where we had everybody out there playing for one."
But Redick was far more than one equal part of the five-man team. He had the capacity crowd chanting his name through much of the second half and departed to a standing ovation when he left the game with just more than two minutes to go.
"Special players do amazing things in this type of situation," Krzyzewski said.
"He's a special player. He's one of the great players that we've had at Duke University. As a result, he's one of the great players ever to play college basketball, because we've had so many national players of the year."
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