No. 5 Duke rallies to beat NC State 78-73

Duke made another stunning comeback on Thursday night, getting a lift from guard Seth Curry to come from 20 points down in the second half to beat N.C. State.

The Blue Devils won 78-73 at Cameron Indoor Stadium, eight days after they charged back from 10 points down in the final 2:36 at North Carolina to win by one point at the buzzer.

N.C. State had one last chance to force overtime and keep its upset bid alive, but Lorenzo Brown missed a 3-point attempt from the left baseline in the final four seconds with Duke ahead 76-73, and Curry grabbed the rebound.

Austin Rivers, Duke's freshman guard, had one word for the outcome: amazing.

"I'm so proud of our guys to come back," Rivers said. "We were down 20 points with like 10 minutes left to go in the game. I've never seen anything like that. We had no doubt in our minds that we could win this game.

"I kept telling everybody and everybody kept telling each other, 'We can do this.' The tables can turn really quick. Once they do, most teams are going to be real tight. And that's what we did. We got them into situations they weren't comfortable in."

Behind C.J. Leslie's shot-blocking and Brown's cool hand at point guard, the Wolfpack surged to 61-41 lead with 11:33 left. It was then that mounting foul trouble, especially on Leslie, Richard Howell and C.J. Williams, began to take a toll.

N.C. State compounded its problems by poor shot selection, which it had avoided for 30 minutes. When all the problems came together, Duke charged back, steadily chopping into the lead once the run began.

Forward Scott Wood of N.C. State said the foul trouble was hard to overcome.

"It definitely hurt; (Leslie and Howell) were big reasons why we were in the game," Wood said. "I thought C.J. Leslie played his butt off and Richard was a force inside. Any time your two starting forwards go down, whether it's injury or foul trouble, it hurts."

Duke closed the game on a 37-12 scoring run in the final 11:08. Curry scored 16 points in the surge. He hit a 3-pointer from the left baseline to cut the lead to 71-69 with 3:14 left, and Rivers then nailed a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give Duke its first lead of the game with 2:24 left at 72-71.

"Seth made some huge plays," Rivers said. "Guys made some huge plays to hit a big shot again. Everybody made big plays. No one was scared to make plays."

Duke improved to 22-4 overall and 9-2 in the ACC, and stayed in a three-way tie with North Carolina and Florida State for first place. Curry scored 26 points, a career high, and Rivers added 16.

Duke charged back despite shooting 36.2 percent, its worst performance of the season. When N.C. State held the 20-point lead, Duke had made 15 of 52 shots from the field and four of 22 3-point attempts.

N.C. State fell to 18-8 and 7-4. Brown scored 19 points, and teamed with Leslie to fire N.C. State to a 46-30 halftime lead. Leslie scored 12 points, had nine rebounds and blocked six shots.

Wood was pleased at halftime by the way that N.C. State had played in front of a hostile crowd, but he still felt somewhat uneasy.

And even up 20, Wood was sure Duke wasn't finished.

"We knew they were going to make a run at us," Wood said. "Our main focus was to withstand that and not play to lose the game. We tried to keep the pedal to the metal, but they made shots and played a really good half. You've just got to give them credit."

Rivers was energized by another come-from-behind win, but wouldn't like to see another for the rest of the season.

"We can't keep doing this," Rivers said. "We can't keep coming into the games and letting teams get leads like this."