The Duke Blue Devils travelled to Madison, Wisconsin for the biggest early season college hoops match up to date.  And the result was to their liking, as they knocked off the nations second ranked team 80-70.

The Blue Devils moved to 8-0 on the young season by taking the crowd out of one of basketball's infamous venues, trailing just two times in the game.  Duke has dominated their opponents in the ACC vs Big Ten Challenge but most figured that the Badgers would be the favorite playing at home.

Duke was led by a sensational performance by Tyus Jones, their freshman point guard who was the games high scorer with 22 points.  That was also Jones career high at Duke, but he had plenty of help on this evening.

"My teammates and coach are very confident in me and they've been getting on me to be more aggressive on the offensive end," said Jones after the big Duke win.  Jones also added 4 assists and 6 rebounds to his stat line.

The Blue Devils only went eight deep with their rotation tonight, but it was the bench play which stood out.  Rasheed Sulaimon played his best game of the season, scoring 14 points.  Many of those came at key moments in the game when the Blue Devils were fending off an attempted Badger run.  Matt Jones and Marshall Plumlee also contributed by playing key minutes.

Jahlil Okafor was hampered a but by foul trouble, but was effective 13 points, including one of his more emphatic dunks of the season.  The Blue Devils leading scorer this season, senior captain Quinn Cook added 13 points as well and Amile Jeffrson and Justise Winslow tallied the remaining 11 points for Duke.

The Blue Devils stymied the Badgers with a solid defensive effort where they switched off their opponents with team play.   That coupled with shooting 65,2% from the floor was the recipe for victory.  And that victory came against one of the nations most experienced and disciple teams.

While in reality this is only a December win, it is one that will stand out big time when the NCAA Selection Committee seeds teams come March.

Duke improved to 25-13 against top-5 teams under coach Mike Krzyzewski. The Duke win snapped a  23-game non conference winning streak for the Badgers.

Duke used a 6-0 run to stretch the lead to 69-60 after Wisconsin close the gap late in the game.

The Blue Devils will not enjoy one of their longest breaks of the season.  The next game on the slate for the Blue Devils will be on December the 15th against Elon in Cameron Indoor Stadium.