The Duke Blue Devils played their last out of conference game of the regular season by defeating the Brown Bears in Cameron Indoor Stadium. The 75-50 win pushes their overall record to 11-1 as the ACC season is set to begin in earnest.

It was announced before the game that Duke would be without their star point guard, Tre Jones, who is still nursing what has been called a minor foot injury. He is expected to be ready for the Blue Devils next game against Boston College.

In Jones's absence, Duke started Jordan Goldwire and Joey Baker. As expected, Duke had a tough time in the early going of shaking off the holiday break.

With the game tied at 12-12 with 11:26 to go in the half Duke was forced to take an early timeout when no Blue Devils came for the out of bounds pass. Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski's jacket went flying after several lapses in attention on both ends of the floor.

It got worse. Brown would take the lead and Duke would tie it only to see another drained 3 and a 17-14 lead. But then Duke came alive after a Joey Baker bucket and a steal by big Vernon Carey for a dunk and an 18-17 Duke lead and they would never trail again.

In the second half, Duke was still stagnant and Brown cut the lead to 48-40 before Duke got going on consecutive Alex O'Connell buckets only to let the Bears climb back into the game down 9 with under seven minutes to go.

O'Connell would hit the first Duke three of the game to keep a long streak alive. His play off the bench for Duke was steller and needed. He ended the game with 14 points.

Vernon Carey once again led all Duke scorers with 19 points but just 6 rebounds. Wendell Moore was the only other Blue Devil in double-figures.

Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski praised the play of O'Connell in the post-game presser saying he kept shooting and played older. He was also happy with how Jordan Goldwire has played while Tre Jones was out.

According to some players they heard an earful at the half and it took a bit to get to the Duke locker room. The keyword today and moving forward is consistency. Both the players and Krzyzewski mentioned this.

Duke looked as if they had not played in a while today and despite playing numerous players the energy level seemed off. It is a good bet that the team will spend time on finding their legs again before the 6 p.m. New Years' eve game with Boston College.

Bottom line - Duke hit just 2-18 three point shots. The Blue Devils were 13-16. Duke had a lot of unforced turnovers. The Duke bench outscored the Bears 34-12.; Duke outscored Brown in the paint 48-22.