BLACKSBURG, Va. — Seth Curry made the most of his last chance to play in an arena his father once ruled.
The son of Dell Curry, Virginia Tech’s second all-time scorer, scored 19 of his 22 points in the first half as No. 6 Duke opened a 20-point lead and sent Virginia Tech to its ninth consecutive loss, 88-56 on Thursday night.
“I just wanted to come out tonight and play well,” Curry said. “The first two times I played terrible.”
He took care of that in short order, hitting three of his five 3-pointers before the game was 7 minutes old.
“I’m always trying to be aggressive early on,” Curry said. “Coach called the first few plays for me so I was able to get some good looks and they went down.”
Curry finished 6 for 14 from the field overall, but missed only once in six tries from behind the arc. Duke shot 53.6 percent for the game (30 of 56) and was 12 for 17 on 3-pointers (70.6 percent).
“Our shooting was terrific. Seth set the tone for that in the first half,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “He put on an amazing display with 19 points and we stayed steady the whole time.”
Rasheed Sulaimon added 17 points and Mason Plumlee had 13 points, 12 rebounds, five assists and three blocks, a performance Krzyzewski called “an almost perfect game.”
The Blue Devils (23-3, 10-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) moved Krzyzewski into sole possession of third place on the career list for victories at one school with 877.
He was tied with Adolph Rupp of Kentucky and is now two behind North Carolina’s Dean Smith. Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim leads with 910 victories.
Erick Green, the nation’s leading scorer with a 25.3 average coming in, led the Hokies (11-15, 2-11) with 22 points. C.J. Barksdale had a career-best 14 points and Cadarian Raines added 10, but no one else scored more than five as the Hokies shot just 43 percent and made only 1 of 16 3-point attempts.
Duke, meantime, buried the Hokies quickly with a 3-point barrage.
Curry had three 3s and Quinn Cook and Sulaimon also connected in an early 19-6 run, and after the teams swapped baskets, Curry capped a 15-3 burst for Duke with his fourth 3-pointer of the half.
“Curry came out on fire,” Virginia Tech coach James Johnson said. “Before I could turn around he had 19 points.”
That made the score 37-17 after 16 minutes, and Curry added a fifth 3 before halftime. Duke was 8 for 9 from behind the arc in the first 20 minutes. The Hokies, meantime, had 10 field goals, none of them 3s.
Coming off a 2-point loss at Maryland, the Blue Devils started fast in the second half, too, getting an inside basket by Josh Hairston, a baseline jumper from Cook and a 3 from Sulaimon to make it 55-30.
The Hokies never threatened again and Johnson pulled Green with just over 6 minutes to play and trailing 73-49. Krzyzewski followed with wholesale changes shortly thereafter.
The victory kept Duke solidly in second place in the ACC, two games ahead of North Carolina, N.C. State and Virginia.
California 48, No. 23 Oregon 46: Justin Cobbs’ jumper with 0.7 seconds to play gave California a 48-46 victory over No. 23 Oregon on Thursday night.
Cobbs’ shot, which came after the Golden Bears (17-9, 9-5 Pac-12) ran nearly all of the final 26 seconds off the clock, hit nothing but net.
Cobbs finished with 14 points and Allen Crabbe had 12 for Cal, which has won four straight.
Arsalan Kazemi had 11 points and a season-high 18 rebounds for the Ducks (21-6, 10-4), who lost their 11th straight game to the Bears. Carlos Emory scored 13 points.
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