The bad news? You are playing the #1 team in the country. Despite the neutral court, the team you are playing has a 9 game winning streak and is 16-1 all-time in the building. Their top scorer sets a career high in scoring. Your top forward injures his leg with a little less than five minutes remaining in the first half and doesn’t return to the game. After those first nine minutes, you commit 16 turnovers for the rest of the game while only forcing seven. The top two scorers on the other team, the only ones in double digits, outscore your top four. Other than those top four, your team manages just two baskets.

You are playing Duke. You lose by 31.

This was the game that will plague the coach of the Texas Longhorns, Rick Barnes, until tournament time. Texas was favored by many going into the game based on match-ups and the results so far this season. Duke had struggled in games it should have won easily, including needing a last second desperation shot from Sean Dockery to win against Virginia Tech. Meanwhile, the Longhorns had rolled over opponents.

Despite all in their favor, it would be a 6’4” senior guard from Roanoke, Virginia, that would do them in. J.J. Redick, already known throughout the league for his ability on the free throw line, decided to show off his shooting ability against Texas. Right from the start, he was integral to Duke’s success. In the five minutes, Redick had scored 5 points, and was drawing defenders to him allowing the rest of the team to get free and score. It looked as if Redick would be the side story in the game, contributing with baskets when needed and helping his teammates to produce while he was double covered.

Instead, J.J. Redick became the story. Over the next four minutes, Redick scored eight of Duke’s nine points. With a big three point shot to cap that run, he became the ninth player for Duke to score 2000 points in his career. Shots were falling from all over for him. He hit from inside the line, just outside the arc, and from what would have been at least two feet behind the NBA three point line. Texas had no answer to stop him.

Duke steadily pulled away to a twelve point lead at halftime with Redick contributing 22 of Duke’s 45. Tough defense late in the first half led to a flurry of turnovers by the Longhorns. Texas found itself pushing to get back into the game but only committed more errors and consistently found themselves with two defenders surrounding them. Their only bright spots in the half came when they created space and drove the lane against Duke. Brad Buckman was able to draw last year’s defensive player of the year, Shelden Williams, out of the lane and Duke’s forwards were unable to stop drives by Kenton Paulino.

However, Buckman went down with a leg injury late in the first half changing the look of the inside game for Texas. While Texas’s other players were able to contain the inside game on the defensive end, they were unable to open up the lanes that Buckman had given them. The forward returned to the bench with a leg wrap after going to the locker room for treatment. He did not return to the game, and his presence was missed.

After the half, Texas seemed to come back energized. A quick 9-2 run in the first two minutes brought the lead down to 5 points. That was the end of the highlights for the Longhorns.

Over the next six minutes, Duke had a 22-4 run to pull away from Texas for good. Redick began the run with a three point shot to become Duke’s 8th all-time scorer. The tenacious Duke defense swarmed the Texas guards, forcing turnover after turnover. Redick hit another three point shot to force a time out after the lead had reached thirteen and he didn’t stop there. When Texas tried to switch up the defense against him and sent in a faster man to guard Redick, all he did was embarrass him. With a quick head fake, he forced Texas guard J.D. Lewis into the air wildly flailing his arms. The sophomore never had a chance as Redick calmly took one step to the right and sent in another three point shot. As he ran down court, Redick gave a holler and waved his fist in the air.

While Redick continued to pour it in from the outside, Williams came alive under the basket. Faced with a rotating series of big men to contend with, Williams dropped in 23 including nine of ten from the free throw line, a place that in the past had often plagued the big man.

With ten minutes remaining, Texas had little idea of what it could do to score on offense. The pressure of Duke’s defense and the lack of confident play at the point guard spot led to trouble organizing their sets.

Redick hit two free throws with six minutes remaining in the game to complete his scoring. He finished with 41, a new career high. He became the first player since Danny Ferry, 17 years earlier to the day against Miami, to score over 40 in a game for the Blue Devils.

Shelden Williams finished 5 blocks in addition to his 23 points. This was the 24th time in his career, the 4th this year, that he had blocked five or more shots in one game. He is currently 8th on the all-time blocked shots list in the ACC and second at Duke, just 27 behind leader Mike Gminski.

Texas forward LaMarcus Aldridge led the Longhorns with 21 points, mostly coming in the last minutes of the game when Duke was playing four freshmen. Paulino, after closing the first half with 11, could only manage three for the rest of the game, finishing with 14.

Duke’s next game is Sunday, December 18th, against Valparaiso. Texas will play Tennessee next Saturday.