Blue Devils

DURHAM, N.C. -- North Carolina's two-year spell over Cameron Indoor Stadium finally wore off last night.Instead, a frenzied Duke home crowd worked some magic of its own, inspiring the No. 12 Blue Devils to a second-half surge and a convincing 74-60 upset victory.The No. 5 Tar Heels committed 11 second-half turnovers and shot a horrendous 27.6 percent for the half, Duke broke out of its JTC defensive mode, erasing a 28-24 halftime deficit with a 50-point explosion in the final 20 minutes.The Tar Heels, who saw their 11-game winning streak ended along with a two-year string in Cameron, fell to 13-2 on the season and 2-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Duke women's basketball coach Gail Goestenkors warned her Blue Devils in the locker room that their East Regional semifinal meeting with Old Dominion yesterday would more likely resemble Darwin than Naismith."

COLLEGE PARK -Sure, the Maryland-Duke rivalry isn't what it used to be. But you could have fooled a raucous capacity crowd at Comcast Center last night - not to mention the Terrapins and Blue Devils themselves. Seventh-ranked Duke beat unranked Maryland, 78-67, in a rugged game in which Duke used three-pointers to pull away late. Duke won largely because Gerald Henderson scored 19 points and made several key blocks. Henderson's three-pointer gave the Blue Devils a 63-60 lead. Kyle Singler followed with a three to put Duke up 66-60, and the Blue Devils didn't trail after that.

When Duke made a nostalgic journey to Philadelphia last week, the Blue Devils found themselves locked in a cruel juxtaposition.Playing at the Spectrum for the first time since their glorious 1992 NCAA tournament victory over Kentucky -- a 104-103 overtime thriller called by some the greatest college basketball game ever -- the Blue Devils were confronted with all of this year's demons.Ineffective play inside, a thin bench depleted by injuries and another offensive collapse down the stretch conspired to deal Duke a painful loss against Temple.

Losses are relative in college basketball, as top-ranked Duke and point guard Bobby Hurley learned the hard way yesterday.Getting over a 75-73 defeat to North Carolina on Wednesday night in Chapel Hill would have been difficult enough, but now the Blue Devils will have to do it without Hurley.The 6-0 junior, who broke Tommy Amaker's school record for career assists, also broke something else against the Tar Heels -- the second metatarsal bone in his right foot.Hurley, a key player in both Duke's run to the national championship last year and the team's 17-0 start this season, is expected to be sidelined up to three weeks.

COLLEGE PARK -- After two weeks of doing a lot of things wrong, the Maryland women's basketball team did enough things right to stun No. 14 Duke, 63-52, last night at Cole Field House.After taking a 29-point loss flush on the chin Saturday at Georgia Tech, Maryland looked to be in for a long night against the Blue Devils, who started the night half a game out of first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference.But the Terps (9-11 overall, 3-7 ACC) put together their best overall effort of the year in ending a five-game losing streak.

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- After getting blown out by Duke in the second round of last year's NCAA tournament, the Iowa Hawkeyes had promised to make a better showing. But playing in a hostile environment that was virtually a Duke home game, Iowa fell apart.Two days after scoring 98 points and shooting 71.4 percent in a half, the Hawkeyes could barely find the basket against a suffocating Duke defense in yesterday's 75-62 loss before a sellout crowd at the Greensboro Coliseum.Duke (30-2) built leads of as many as 26 points in the first half and regrouped after an Iowa rally cut the deficit to eight in the second half.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Retro was in yesterday at Tropicana Field, where there was more talk about a similar matchup between Duke and Kentucky from six years ago than about today's NCAA South Regional final between the top-seeded Blue Devils and second-seeded Wildcats.Like a bad pass, Duke point guard Steve Wojciechowski intercepted a question in mid-flight."I don't think that game is relevant to this game at all," said Wojciechowski, "since Christian Laettner and Grant Hill won't play for us and Jamal Mashburn and whoever else won't play for them.

NEW YORK -- After his team barely beat Evansville on Wednesday night in the semifinals of the Presason NIT, Bob Knight apologized. For the way his Indiana team had played. For the fact that Andrae Patterson hit a jump shot right before the buzzer to win. Talk about motivational speeches.Knight offered no such apologies last night.Patterson didn't give his coach -- or Duke -- a chance.The 6-foot-8, 235-pound junior forward scored a career-high 39 points -- 22 in the second half -- to lead the 20th-ranked Hoosiers past the sixth-ranked Blue Devils, 85-69, before a crowd of 17,930, to give Indiana its second championship in this tournament in the past five years.

COLLEGE PARK -- During the past three seasons, University of Maryland defensive coordinator Greg Williams had quite a few strategic battles with Duke coach Steve Spurrier. When Spurrier left for the University of Florida after last season, Williams thought he had seen the last of his old adversary and his pass-oriented offense.But the Blue Devils still are throwing a lot under coach Barry Wilson, and Williams again must come up with a game plan when the Terps (4-3 overall, 2-2 Atlantic Coast Conference)