BROOKLYN, NY – The December version of Wendell Moore Jr. showed up on Thursday, and Duke basketball needed every bit of it to sneak past a spunky Syracuse squad in the ACC Tournament.
Moore, the Blue Devils’ junior forward and team captain, poured in a career-high 26 points to lead top-seeded Duke past ninth-seeded Syracuse, 88-79, and send his team to Friday’s tournament semifinals.
Maybe the efficiency wasn’t there – Moore shot 9-for-20 from the field and 4-for-10 on 3-pointers – but everything else was. Eight assists. Two clutch free throws. A single turnover across 39 minutes.
Plus-minus isn’t basketball’s most bulletproof statistic, but Duke’s +14 advantage with Moore on the floor certainly passed the smell test, a metric reminiscent of the potent non-conference stretch that had the junior trending toward an “All-American year, ”As coach Mike Krzyzewski described it in December.
“Wendell really led us,” Krzyzewski said Thursday.
Live from New York:Coverage from the ACC men’s basketball tournament in Brooklyn
Moore executed a clean split with 13 points in each half against Syracuse, and his offensive fearlessness was especially crucial given that freshman forward AJ Griffin, fresh off a food poisoning bout, almost didn’t play and freshman forward Paolo Banchero, despite some solid final stats, disappeared at times.
Syracuse, playing without first-team All ACC pick and leading scorer Buddy Boeheim, led 40-36 at halftime and extended its lead to 52-45 early in the second half. Duke clawed back then found itself in a back-and-forth Barclays Center affair, two desperate teams alternating tough bucket after tough bucket.
Duke led 78-77 at the game’s final media timeout, which offered a reality check for a team still smarting from last Saturday’s home loss to UNC and certainly not playing like a national championship hopeful.
During that gathering, “we had this look in the huddle,” Moore said. “Everybody knew what we were going to do for the next three possessions: three stops and three scores. Everybody knew what we were doing on the offensive end, and really it was just a matter of getting stops on the defensive end. “
“So that look I saw in everybody’s eyes,” he continued, “it just looked like we’re not losing this game.”
True to form, Moore promptly made two huge crunch-time plays: two free throws to give Duke an 80-79 lead at the 2:57 mark and a game-icing assist to guard Jeremy Roach, equally excellent with 19 points.
Leading 82-79 late, Duke isolated Moore, who drove right and swung a pass out to Roach, who nailed a left-wing 3-pointer (his fifth of the game) and put the Blue Devils up 85-79 with 1:07 left in the contest.
“He has all the trust in me to make that shot and I have all the trust in him,” Roach said. “If it was vice versa, I would do the same thing.”
Those five Moore-produced points made up half of the 10-0 run Duke executed over the game’s final three minutes to dispatch Syracuse and a red-hot Jimmy Boeheim, who had a season-high 28 points and six 3-pointers. Joe Girard III also fueled the Orange’s brief upset bid with 23 points and four 3-pointers.
“I think everyone stepped up,” Krzyzewski said. “Started with Wendell hitting the two free throws. You can’t practice those things … especially for next week, being in those situations really, really helps us. “
Duke (27-5) now plays No. 4 seed Miami (which beat No. 13 seed Boston College, 71-69, with a buzzer beating layup in overtime later on Thursday) in a Friday semifinal at 7 pm The Blue Devils are now just two wins away from an ACC conference championship sweep in Krzyzewski’s 42nd and final season.
And Moore, one of only two power-conference players averaging at least 13 points, five rebounds and four assists per game, will enter that game perhaps as close to his December form as he’s been since.
Chapel Fowler is a recruiting reporter for The Fayetteville Observer and the USA TODAY Network. Reach him by email at cfowler@gannett.com or on Twitter at @chapelfowler.