Evans Posts Career High; No. 2 Duke Defeats Florida State, 100-65

Saturday, March 1

Durham, N.C.

7 p.m.

Duke University

26-3,17-1ACC

100

Florida State

16-13,7-11ACC

Florida St.

Duke

100

Darren Harris, Mason Gillis and Isaiah Evans against Florida State

Evans Posts Career High; No. 2 Duke Defeats Florida State, 100-65

3/1/2025 9:58:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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DURHAM, N.C. – Isaiah Evans was one of four Blue Devils to finish in double-figures, as No. 2 Duke (26-3, 17-1 ACC) raced past Florida State (16-13, 7-11 ACC), defeating the Seminoles by 35, 100-65, on Saturday, March 1.

In his first career start, Evans tallied a team-high 19 points, followed by Cooper Flagg with 16 points, and Khaman Maluach and Kon Knueppel with 14 points each.

Maluach grabbed 10 rebounds for his fifth double-double of the season, Knueppel distributed a game-high five assists, and Flagg collected six boards, four assists, two steals and a blocked shot.

The Blue Devils reached the century mark in the scoring column for the fourth time this season and the third time in the team's last five outings.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Khaman Maluach scored the game's first points with a fastbreak layup. A three-point-play by Kon Knueppel on Duke's next possession put the Blue Devils in front, 5-0, in the early going. The Blue Devils' first three-pointer of the game came out of the first media timeout, with Knueppel draining a corner triple.
Mason Gillis snapped a four-minute scoring drought for Duke and made it a 16-11 game with two free throws. Gillis made a three-pointer and Knueppel followed up with a three-point-play to build Duke's lead to eight, 22-14, at the halfway mark of the first half. Isaiah Evans sent in his first three-pointer of the game, forcing a Florida State timeout with Duke on an 11-0 scoring run.
The run reached 14 following Gillis' second three-pointer of the half. A layup and a free throw by Evans put Duke in front by 17, 35-18, with 5:33 left before halftime. The margin grew over 20, 45-23, following two makes from the charity stripe by Malauch.
Duke took a 17-point lead, 47-30, into halftime. The visitors posted the first five points of the second half but Evans canned his third three-pointer and James converted a three-point-play to put the Blue Devils back in control, 53-35. A Cooper Flagg rejection led to a fast-break layup through contact by Knueppel and expanded Duke's edge, 61-35, at the first media break of the second half.
Evans' fourth three-pointer, followed by a steal and layup by Flagg, pushed the Duke lead to 32, 83-51, with just over eight minutes left in the contest. Maluach, already with 14 points, secured his double-double with a defensive rebound with six and a half minutes left to play.
Two points from Cameron Sheffield and five from Spencer Hubbard helped Duke close out the 100-65 victory.

NOTES

Duke scored 100 points for the fourth time this season and the third time in the last five games.
In Duke's last five outings, the Blue Devils are averaging 98.6 points per contest, while limiting opponents to 64.8 points per game (+33.8).
Duke's four 100-point showings are the most in a season since the 2009-10 Blue Devils also reached the century mark four times.
The Blue Devils have scored 100 points or more 201 times in program history, with an overall record of 195-6, including a 139-1 standard at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Duke won the rebounding battle, 49-32, and has finished with a positive margin on the glass in all but seven games this season.
The 49 boards are the second-most by the Blue Devils this season (50 vs. Army) and the most against a conference opponent.
The rebounding effort included a season-high 21 offensive boards.
With the 35-point victory, Duke now has nine games in conference play this season with a winning margin of at least 25 points, the most by any team in a single season in ACC history.
The Blue Devils have posted eight victories by a margin of 30 points or more.
Head coach Jon Scheyer secured his 80th career victory, equaling Bill Guthridge (North Carolina, 1997-2000) for the most wins by an ACC coach in their first three seasons.
Duke now leads the series against Florida State, 45-11, with a 25-2 advantage at Cameron Indoor Stadium and wins in nine of the last 10 meetings.
Duke ended the first half with 12 assists on 16 made shots, while committing zero turnovers.
The Blue Devils finished the contest with 17 assists and just four turnovers, a 4.25 assist-turnover ratio.
For the 17th time this season, Duke finished with a double-digit advantage for points in the paint, outscoring the Seminoles, 46-18, in the category.
Along with the positive margin for points in the paint, Duke out-paced Florida State in the remaining four specialty stats – points off turnovers (21-5), second-chance points (17-5), fast-break points (25-7) and bench points (30-26).
The Blue Devils picked up their 17th ACC win of the season. Duke has won at least 14 league games in all three seasons under Scheyer.
The 17 conference wins are the most by Duke, with the ACC expanding the league schedule to 20 games ahead of the 2019-20 season. The Blue Devils had previously reached 16 ACC victories in a single season twice, in 2021-22 (16-4) and 1998-99 (16-0).
With the win, Duke improved to 314-93 (.771) in ACC regular-season games when ranked as a top-five team in the country.
Isaiah Evans earned the first start of his career and scored a career-high 19 points to lead the team.
Evans made four three-pointers, his fourth consecutive game with at least three made three-point field goals.
When Evans makes at least three triples, Duke is 9-0 this season.
Saturday marked the third time in Duke's last four contests that Evans led the team in scoring.
Cooper Flagg scored 16 points, including 12 after intermission, to go with six rebounds and four assists in just 20 minutes of play.
Flagg shot 5-of-9 (.556) from the field and a perfect 6-of-6 from the charity stripe.
The freshman also added two steals and a blocked shot.
Khaman Maluach posted his fifth double-double of the season, scoring 14 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.
Kon Knueppel also scored 14 points, while reeling in five caroms and tallying a team-best five helpers.
To go with his five assists, Knueppel committed zero turnovers.
Knueppel connected on all five of his free throws, extending his streak from the charity stripe to a season-best 26 in-a-row.
Three other Blue Devils scored at least six points, with Mason Gillis adding nine, Sion James scoring seven and Darren Harris chipping in six.
The six points for Harris matched his career high, and the freshman grabbed four rebounds, equaling a career high.
Spencer Hubbard scored a career-high five points on 2-of-3 (.667) shooting, including a three-pointer.

QUOTES

"First, for me, an honor to play and compete against Coach [Leonard] Hamilton all these years. We still may play each other, who knows, in the ACC Tournament, but for me, as a player, as an assistant coach and head coach, I've never known anything else with Florida State. You always know, with his teams, what challenges they're going to present. I think this game was about as well as we've done with valuing the ball while still being aggressive. And I think that's the key against them. You can't play on your heels, because they can really make it hard. You obviously can't be aggressive and just give them extra possessions. So, credit to our guys. I'm really proud of this win, because we're missing Tyrese [Proctor] and Maliq [Brown], Cooper [Flagg] goes out in the first half, and it was really what a team is all about. Darren Harris steps up and comes in. Mason Gillis and his minutes. Isaiah [Evans] starts, and wasn't making shots. I think we're used to him just making shots all the time, and then he stuck with it. He ends up being our leading scorer. Kon Knueppel ended up playing point guard for us, he led us in assists, no turnovers. So many guys stepped up, and that's what I'm most proud of. Khaman [Maluach] with a double-double, just a complete team win. Couldn't be more proud of these guys." - Duke head coach Jon Scheyer
"We played great. We're just a group of guys that are always connected. So when a guy goes down, the next man comes up. I feel like that's been the story of our team this year." - Duke freshman guard/forward Isaiah Evans
"Super proud – a bunch of guys stepped up. I thought we out-toughed them. That's very satisfying, as a team. [We got] a bunch of rebounds, we got to the free throw line about double the times they did, and we didn't turn the ball over. Those were the three keys to the game, and we executed them very well." - Duke freshman guard/forward Kon Knueppel

UP NEXT

No. 2 Duke plays its final home game of the season on Monday, March 3, welcoming Wake Forest to Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Blue Devils (26-3, 17-1 ACC) and Demon Deacons (20-9, 12-6 ACC) tip off at 7 p.m., on ESPN.

To stay up to date with Blue Devils men's basketball, follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by searching "DukeMBB".

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