Tigers Lead Early, But No. 2 Duke Roars Back in Cameron

Tuesday, December 18

Durham, N.C.

6:00 PM

Princeton University

5-5

101

Duke

10-1

Princeton

Duke

101

Myles Stephens led Princeton in scoring at Duke.

Photo by: Keenan Hairston

Tigers Lead Early, But No. 2 Duke Roars Back in Cameron

December 18, 2018 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

The first 12-plus minutes of Tuesday night's visit to Cameron Indoor Stadium saw the Princeton men's basketball team lead second-ranked Duke, but the Blue Devils came roaring back in a 101-50 win.

Princeton scored the game's first eight points, with six of those coming from Myles Stephens, and forced Duke to miss its first eight shots from the field. Duke also missed its first seven 3-point tries and was held scoreless from deep until more than nine minutes were gone in the game.

The Tigers held the lead until Duke tied it at 16-16 with just more than eight minutes left until the half, and the Blue Devils didn't lead until a Cam Reddish 3-pointer fell to make it 19-18 with less than six minutes before the break. That was part of a 16-2 run that turned a five-point Tiger lead at 16-11 into a 27-18 Blue Devil lead with less than four minutes before half, and part of a larger 27-7 run that gave Duke its largest first-half lead of 15 points at 38-23 with a minute before half.

"It's a great lesson," Mitch Henderson, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of Princeton men's basketball, said. "When you're playing against the best, you've got to be absolutely sharper than you've ever been."

Myles Stephens led the way for Princeton with 19 points, two off his season high and his most since scoring 19 against George Washington in Jadwin on Dec. 1.

"It was good, definitely, to see the ball go in, so Hopefully this'll carry over into the next couple games going into league play in January," Stephens said.

The Tigers will hit the court again Friday at Lafayette before the holiday break.

"I feel good about this team," Stephens said. "I don't even think we've reached our peak yet. Jaelin (Llewellyn) is back three games. Devin (Cannady) is getting back from injury still, and we're coming to full strength now and we've still got a long way to go, so I feel really good going forward."

Postgame Notes

• Duke extended its series lead to 19-1 all-time and has won the last six since Princeton's win in Jadwin in 1981. The win was Duke's 146th consecutive non-conference home win, a streak that dates back to 2000.

• Myles Stephens moved past 1,100 career points and remained in 20th place on the program's career scoring list with 1,118, four behind Chris Thomforde '69 for 19th (1,122).

• Devin Cannady moved closer to seventh place on the career scoring list, adding eight points to stand at 1,381, good for eighth place, 47 back of Brian Earl '99 (1,428) in seventh. Cannady also hit two 3-pointers, giving him 255 to get him closer to second-place Douglas Davis '12 (276).