Cameron Boozer scored 30 points, Duke’s suffocating defense held Stanford star Ebuka Okorie to nine and the No. 6 Blue Devils completed a San Francisco Bay Area sweep with an 80-50 Atlantic Coast Conference men’s basketball romp over the host Cardinal on Saturday afternoon.
Boozer completed a double-double with a game-high 14 rebounds for Duke (17-1, 6-0 ACC), which limited Stanford (14-5, 3-3) to 35.2% shooting en route to its second-lowest scoring output of the season.
After having to rally from an early deficit to win at Cal on Wednesday, the Blue Devils had no such issues on the west side of the San Francisco Bay, scoring the first six points and never trailing on their way to a sixth straight win.
Boozer and Duke’s defense dominated the first half, during which the Blue Devils built a 35-19 advantage. The prized freshman single-handedly outscored the Cardinal over the first 20 minutes with 20 points.
Stanford, meanwhile, had only three field goals and seven points to show for the first 12:46 of the game while falling behind 21-7. The first hoop by a Cardinal starter didn’t come until Okorie dropped in a layup at the 6:57 mark.
The second half was never appreciably closer, with Isaiah Evans’ 15 points and Patrick Ngongba’s 13 complementing Boozer’s leading role.
In his second double-double of the week and ninth of the season, Boozer hit 12 of his 17 shots. Duke finished the game shooting 56%.
Boozer also found time for three assists, three steals and a block.
The Blue Devils won despite making just four 3-pointers. Stanford went 6-for-25.
Jeremy Dent-Smith came off the bench for a team-high 18 points for Stanford, which entered the contest riding the momentum of an upset win over visiting No. 14 North Carolina at home Wednesday.
Okorie, who had a season-high 36 points against the Tar Heels, had his second-lowest output of his freshman season on 3-for-9 shooting.
Reserve AJ Rohosy led Stanford with 11 rebounds to go with eight points. The Cardinal backups outscored their starters 32-18.
–Field Level Media
