No. 6 Duke and Stanford look to complete impressive two-game sweeps when the Atlantic Coast Conference rivals meet in Northern California on Saturday afternoon.
Duke (16-1, 5-0 ACC) tipped off its first-ever ACC trip to the San Francisco Bay Area with a workmanlike 71-56 victory at Cal on Wednesday night, riding a 21-point, 13-rebound effort from Cameron Boozer.
A few hours earlier across the bay, Stanford (14-4, 3-2) rallied late for one of the most significant wins of the Kyle Smith coaching era, overtaking No. 14 North Carolina 95-90.
As was the case in Berkeley earlier in the week, Duke has never played a men’s basketball game at Stanford. The schools met for the first time as ACC opponents last season at Duke, with the Blue Devils rolling to a 106-70 win.
Duke coach Jon Scheyer got a glimpse of what to expect at Stanford when his powerhouse team helped draw a sellout — 11,201 — to Cal’s Haas Pavilion on Wednesday. The Golden Bears hadn’t attracted more than 6,012 for any of their previous 13 home games this season.
Afterward, Scheyer noted that experiencing the hostile conditions probably did his team more good than the win.
“Not many times do you get a chance to do something you haven’t done before,” he noted to reporters. “Coming here to play Cal, seeing the crowd, the environment was a great thing for our program.”
Duke overcame its hardship with a defensive effort that limited Cal to 36.5% shooting overall and 5-for-23 success from beyond the 3-point arc. The Blue Devils held two of Cal’s top scorers — Dai Dai Ames and Chris Bell — to a total of 13 points.
The task figures to be tougher at Stanford, which got a school freshman-record 36 points from Ebuka Okorie in its narrow win over North Carolina. The Cardinal scored 11 of the game’s final 14 points to pull out the five-point victory.
Afterward, Smith was glad there were two off days on the ACC schedule before jumping right back into the frying pan against Duke on Saturday.
“Great win for our program,” the Cardinal coach assured the media afterward. “Look forward to enjoying it while we can.”
The matchup of Okorie and Boozer brings together two of the nation’s top freshmen.
Okorie, a New Hampshire native, has scored 30 or more points in four of his last seven games. He also found time in the North Carolina win for a season-best nine assists.
Okorie’s season total of 367 points is 21 fewer than Boozer, a prep star in Florida in recent years. Boozer has scored at least 14 points in all 17 of his games this season, with eight double-doubles.
Neither has had a collegiate triple-double. Okorie has never had more than seven rebounds this season, while Boozer had a season-best nine assists against Florida State earlier this month.
Each got plenty of help in Wednesday’s win.
Ryan Agarwal backed Okorie’s 36 points with 20 of his own, including a lead-padding 3-pointer with 32 seconds left. Jeremy Dent-Smith also scored 20, hitting a go-ahead three with 1:01 to play.
Meanwhile, Isaiah Evans complemented Boozer with 17 points, eight coming in a 13-0 burst at the end of the first half that allowed Duke to overcome an early deficit.
