Duke basketball's 45 points at the break against visiting Charlotte in Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday afternoon were the most from the Blue Devils in any first half this season. And their 25-point lead with under two minutes remaining before the break marked the team's largest first-half advantage to date.
The 22nd-ranked Blue Devils (6-3, 0-1 ACC) went on to notch a feel-good 80-59 victory over the unranked 49ers to get back on the right track following back-to-back road losses to Arkansas and Georgia Tech last week.
Junior guard Jaylen Blakes, a notably high-energy reserve who tallied a season-high 15 points without missing a shot from the field or at the charity stripe, provided a critical on-court spark with this explosive dunk in transition roughly six minutes into the contest:
But in the locker room following the win, Blakes noted that the most important sparks came during an "intense week of practice":
"Losing those two games in a row can either break you or make you. And for us, we couldn't let it break us. It brought us together...
"We had a collective energy where we needed to make a statement that the two games don't define us. We a lot more season left, and this is going to help with our momentum. We obviously see [the negativity], but we can't listen to it. We have an internal belief in ourselves.
"Nobody sees what's going on behind closed doors, the way we've put in the work. And at the end of the day, we understand the work that we put in. People can write us off. They can do all that. But we have an internal belief in ourselves that our work will pay off and we'll continue to build off this momentum...
"There was a lot of naysayers when you lose two games in a row, especially when wearing the Duke uniform. But for us, it united us."
Jaylen Blakes and the Blue Devils next host unranked Hofstra on Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET (ESPN2).
STREAM: fuboTV (start your free trial)
More must-reads: