Duane Harris Jr tallied 14 points and nine assists while Zeke Mayo added 12 points to lead No 1 Kansas to a 75-72 win over No 11 Duke on Tuesday night.
Rylan Griffin answered an emphatic go-ahead slam from Duke’s Cooper Flagg by hitting a go-ahead three-pointer, putting Kansas up 68-67 with 5:32 remaining. Flagg again tied the score at 71 before Mayo put the Jayhawks ahead for good with 1:57 remaining.
Duke scored just one point over the last 2:29, and Kon Knueppel’s three-point attempt rimmed out at the buzzer.
Flagg, the Blue Devils’ freshman star, finished with 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting after being held to just two points on two shot attempts in the first half.
Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson was ejected on a Flagrant-2 foul call as the Jayhawks led by two with 10:26 remaining. Referees deemed that he intentionally kicked Duke’s Maliq Brown in the head during an on-the-floor tangle.
Dickinson produced 11 points on 4-of-11 shooting and anchored an impressive defensive effort before his ejection. Teammate AJ Storr added 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting.
Duke’s Tyrese Proctor finished with a team-high 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting, while Knueppel added 11 points on 4-of-11 success from the field despite missing all eight of his three-point attempts.
Down by two at halftime, the Blue Devils took a 42-41 lead on a Knueppel jumper 57 seconds after the break, their first edge since they held a 3-2 advantage in the game’s opening moments. Kansas answered with an immediate 9-0 run.
The Jayhawks shot 49.1% from the field as a team and made eight of their 17 three-point attempts (47.1%). Duke finished the game with 24 field goals on 48 attempts (50%), including 11 of their 26 attempts from beyond the arc (42.3%).
Kansas started the game on an emphatic 16-3 run as it drained five consecutive field goals between Duke’s first and second basket. Sion James hit a three-pointer that gave the Blue Devils a brief reprieve, but Storr answered with a thunderous dunk on the other end to put Kansas ahead 18-6.
A 16-4 Duke surge late in the half helped the Blue Devils get within 41-39 entering the break.