Spartans fall to ninth ranked Duke

Men's Basketball traveled to Duke on Friday to take on the AP 9th ranked Blue Devils as well as the Cameron Crazies.

In the 96-62 loss, forward Ben Stywall totaled 19 points and 8 rebounds. All of Stywall's points came in the second half at Cameron Indoor. Senior Mikko Koivisto added 8 points and was 2-7 from the perimeter. Freshman guard Kyle Randall was second on the Spartans with 9 points and 4 assists.

For Duke, Junior Kyle Singler had a game high 20 points and added 5 rebounds and 4 assists. Senior Jon Scheyer added 18 points and 4 assists. Sophomore Forward Miles Plumlee had a game high 9 rebounds. Nolan Smith did not play due while he was serving a two game suspension and freshman Mason Plumlee, Miles younger brother, has a broken wrist and is out indefinitely.

The Spartans opened the game with a dunk from Senior Pete Brown to give them a 2-0 lead, the only lead UNCG would see in the game. From there Duke would go on a 23-6 run that would give the Blue Devils a 15 point advantage just 8 minutes into the game. Koivisto hit 1 of his 2 three point jumpers to cut the margin to 12.

The Blue Devils would go on another run to further pull away from the Spartans and take a 21 point lead with just over 3 minutes left in the half. Duke turned 8 offensive rebounds into 10 second chance points in the first half to add to their 48-27 lead at the break. The Spartans were out rebounded on both sides of the boards, with only four offensive and six defensive to Duke's 14 defensive and 22 overall. The Blue Devils were 4-10 from behind the arc in the first half.

The Spartans would cut the 21-point half time deficit to 17 with just over 16 minutes to play on a pair of layup's from Ben Stywall. UNCG would hold the margin to 22 until Duke closed the game on a 27-15 run. Miles Plumlee would put the exclamation point on the victory with a dunk with only 14 seconds left in the game.

Duke's bench scored 21 of their 48 second half points, another 11 came off of turnovers from the Spartans. UNCG turned the ball over 14 times throughout the game while Duke had 13 of their own.

UNCG Head Coach Mike Dement said after that game, "I liked the way we battled through. Our guards did some good things and Ben Stywall came along in the second half, being very aggressive, and we need that from him for a full 40 minutes."

"Greensboro played very hard," said Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski in the post game press conference. "I thought we played well. Lance (Thomas) on the ball was good," Krzyzewski added. "Our veterans played really hard. I thought our young guys, Oleck (Czyz) is extremely good. He didn't take an outside shot, had six points, six rebounds, played good D, three assists, one turnover, gave a lot of energy. He did well what he was supposed to do. I was really happy for him, he played more minutes tonight than he did all last year."

UNCG take the court at Virginia Tech tonight and the Friday at the Greensboro Coliseum at 7 versus 24th ranked Clemson. The Spartans will then play a series of non-conference and SoCon games before opening up another three game stretch against ACC teams on December 28 against Wake Forest at home at 7. UNCG will play NC State on December 31 at 6 and Maryland on January 3 at 1, both at home.