Cameron Crusher: Duke Blows Out Tennessee In Exhibition Play, 103-64

During the second half of Duke’s win over Tennessee, CBS’s Matt Norlander sent out a one-word tweet with a still of the game. All his text said was: “What.” Duke was up 74-40. Whatever most people expected to happen, not many people expected the Blue Devils to do that to a preseason Top 10 team. But that’s what happened – and it got worse.

Duke ultimately won, 103-64, and there were some real revelations in this game.

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Before we get into anything else, it should be noted that Terrence Hill, who just devastated UNC last spring, only played 4:37 before being injured, and after he went out, so did Troy Henderson. That’s a lot to deal with.

However, Duke was already dominating the game when Hill went out, up 12-2. Hill was the only player who had scored for the Vols, but his came at the line. Tennessee didn’t score a basket until former Demon Deacon Juke Harris got one with 14:30 left in the first half.

Duke just overwhelmed Tennessee at the start of the game, and the Vols never recovered. UT also didn’t even attempt a three until about 9 1/2 minutes into the first half.

On the other hand, Duke scored with relative ease, starting with Dame Sarr’s opening power move to the basket as Duke rolled out to a 17-2 lead.

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It didn’t take long for it to turn into a 36-12 lead. Duke just utterly dominated Tennessee, and did so without Caleb Foster and Drew Scharnowski, both of whom are still out with injuries.

And it was also, to an extent, the Deron Rippey show.

Rippey finished with 21 points to lead the Blue Devils on 9-12/3-6 from the floor. He’s a really interesting player. Rippey has drawn comparisons to Jason Williams, but he’s built much more like the great Johnny Dawkins. However, he’s more muscular than the lean Dawkins ever was.

Watching him slice up the Tennessee defense was a lot of fun. He might have been a little bit tentative or nervous against Belmont, but there was none of that here. Rippey showed a lot of positive arrogance in this one. He knew he…

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Publish date : 2026-10-21 03:57:00

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