Just happy to be in the Sweet 16 wasn’t enough for Arizona. And they showed that Thursday night, downing the No. 1 seed and defending national champion Duke Blue Devils 93-77 at the Honda Center.
Derrick Williams scored a career high 32 points, 25 which came in the first half, and point guard Momo Jones scored 16 and dished six assists in outplaying senior Duke point guard Nolan Smith.
Smith shot 3-for-14 and had six turnovers in his final game as a Blue Devil. While Duke senior Kyle Singler scored 18 and freshman Kyrie Irving poured in 28, they received little help from elsewhere on the roster.
Down 44-38 at halftime, Arizona cut a six-point deficit to three with a Kyle Fogg 3-pointer less than two minutes the second half. A minute later, Jones found Jesse Perry for a lay-up to climb within one point of Duke’s 48 points.
Jones hit a pull-up jumper in transition to tie it at 53 apiece with 15:40 remaining. His foul shots on the next possession gave UA its first lead of the second half, one they would keep.
The Wildcats went on a 19-2 run over a period of five minutes, taking a 53-47 deficit and turning it into a 66-55 lead despite Williams’ two points through the first nine minutes.
Miller heavily relied on his starting line-up, not giving the reserves more than a few minutes playing time until eight minutes remained. But a Parrom jumper and a Horne dunk — he cupped the ball between his palm and arm, still with enough air to finish — on Singler put UA on top 77-63 with 6:47 minutes left in the game.
A Hill tip-in with less than four minutes to go gave UA its largest (CQ?) lead of the game.
The Wildcats shot 48 percent to the Blue Devils’ 53 percent from the field in the first half.
Derrick Williams scored 25 points in the first half, but his Arizona Wildcats trailed at the intermission 44-38 to the Duke Blue Devils.
Blue Devils Kyle Singler and Kyrie Irving each scored 14 in the first half.
Early on, Singler and Williams carried their respective teams. Arizona’s forward scored 10 of UA’s first 13 points while the Duke senior led the Blue Devils with 10 of their first 14 scores.
Irving added seven point early as well, though Arizona kept it close, trailing 19-18 nearly halfway through the first half.
But a 12-2 run over a four-minute stretch extended the Duke lead to 31-20. Arizona made a run back, one again behind Williams’ perimeter game.
Williams didn’t just do it on the scoring end, but put Singler and Miles Plumlee in foul trouble in the first half. He also drilled 5-for-6 from 3-point range to score 25 points in the first half.
An alley-oop from Irving to Mason Plumlee put Duke on top by nine, but Williams hit his fifth 3-pointer at the buzzer to give Duke a 44-48 halftime lead.
