On the heels of a home loss to North Carolina on Saturday to close the regular season, Duke narrowly avoided disaster on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament. The No. 1 seed Blue Devils used a late surge to pull away from No. 9 seed Syracuse for an 88-79 victory. Syracuse, which was playing without leading scorer Buddy Boeheim, took a 79-78 lead at the 3:32 mark before fading in the end against a team that blew them out twice during the regular season.
Syracuse led 40-36 at halftime after closing the half on a 27-12 spurt, even without Boeheim, who was hit with a one-game suspension after punching Florida State's Wyatt Wilkes in Syracuse's game on Wednesday. Without Buddy, his brother Jimmy Boeheim helped carry Syracuse with 28 points. Joe Girard III added 23 for the Orange.
Wendell Moore Jr. led Duke with 26 as the Blue Devils advance to play the winner of this afternoon's game between No. 4 seed Miami and No. 13 seed Boston College in Friday's semifinals. If Duke hadn't rallied, it would have entered the NCAA Tournament on a two-game losing streak in coach Mike Krzyzewski's 42nd and final season as the program's coach.
Instead, it will have at least one more game to fix the defensive issues that appeared in Saturday's loss to North Carolina and again against Syracuse.