Duke basketball responds to upset loss with ACC win at Pittsburgh
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Duke beat Pittsburgh 70-54 on the road.
- Patrick Ngongba II sat out with a left-hand/wrist injury; future availability uncertain.
- Duke outrebounded Pitt 37-23 and scored 36 points in the paint.
Pitt’s Jeff Capel played at Duke, coached at Duke and was fully immersed with everything in the Duke basketball program.
Capel also believed he knew what to expect from Duke on Tuesday at the Petersen Events Center.
“They’ll be loaded for bear,” the Panthers coach said.
Not quite. While the No. 4 Blue Devils wanted to quickly put the last-second loss to North Carolina behind them, move on to the next thing and next game, they had to grind out a 70-54 victory over the Panthers.
“A workmanlike performance,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer called it.
On a night when freshman Cameron Boozer was somewhat average -- the ACC’s leading scorer had 17 points plus 10 rebounds -- the Blue Devils (22-2, 11-1 ACC) got 21 points from Isaiah Evans and 14 points and eight rebounds from Caleb Foster.
The Blue Devils had a different look to the starting lineup with center Patrick Ngongba II ruled out of the game with an injury .Ngongba was replaced by Maliq Brown. and Scheyer said Ngongba’s availability for Saturday’s game against No. 20 Clemson was uncertain.
“We have to see how he does the next couple of days to see if there’s even a chance, and go from there, but it’s hard to say,” Scheyer said.
It was a grind. The Blue Devils were not overly sharp on either end of the floor, at times caught flat footed on defense and making some sloppy plays in their halfcourt offense.
“I think we played good,” Foster said. “I think defensively we had a solid night.”
Offensively, Evans was at his best in the second half. He hit all four of his 3’s and was 5-for-5 from the field in putting up 14 points.
Capel’s eighth season as head coach has been a continuing struggle. The Panthers fell to 9-16 overall and 2-10 in the ACC, although there was a lively crowd of 10,804 on hand Tuesday.
“Their injuries have been a killer for them,” Scheyer said. “They’re not the team that they would have been. But we knew that the group that they have plays incredibly hard and plays incredibly together. And they shoot free, because they know they’re not coming out of the game, and that makes for a dangerous team.”
Pitt stayed close with 3-pointers, hitting seven in the first half. That also kept the crowd in the game.
When the Panthers took an early 9-4 lead, Scheyer quickly ordered up a timeout. It was evident the Blue Devils had not come into the building “loaded for bear.”
A mini-spurt late in the first half enabled the Devils to go to the locker room with a 35-29 lead. Another enabled them to move to a 40-29 lead early in the second half, a 3-pointer by Cameron Boozer having Capel calling for a timeout.
The Blue Devils stayed comfortably ahead the rest of the way, although the Panthers got an inspired game from Roman Siulepa, a 6-6 freshman from Australia. Matched up against Boozer a lot, Siulepa hits 3’s and muscled inside in finishing with 19 points.
But Duke outrebounded the Panthers 37-23 -- Foster and Dame Sarr combined for 15 -- and had 36 points in the paint to Pitt’s 22.
“We were smaller (without Ngongba), which I think sometimes it makes you claw and scratch even more,” Scheyer said. “I thought we did that.”
Playing without Ngongba
The Devils played much of the UNC game without Ngongba, and did not have the 6-11 sophomore available Tuesday.
Ngongba was limited to 16 minutes against UNC because of foul problems and also fell on his left wrist, Scheyer said. He made the trip with the team to Pittsburgh but was held out of the game, a wrist support wrap on his left hand.
“Pat’s really tough. Pat’s dealt with a lot,” Scheyer said. “For him to be out, that’s something.”
Scheyer said Monday that he probably did not play freshman Nik Khamenia enough in the UNC game – the 6-9 forward had just four minutes of playing time. But with Ngongba out, Khamenia was needed Tuesday and got a longer look.
On one first-half play, Khamenia missed a 3 from the corner, raced in to grab the long rebound, missed another shot, rebounded again and scored on a layup – two offensive rebounds and two points because of the hustle.
Sophomore guard Darren Harris, who did not play against UNC, also was in the rotation Tuesday. Harris hit a 3-pointer late in the first half, started the second with a driving layup and gave the Devils some productive minutes.
“We had some lineups out there we haven’t really played before, and I thought our guys really stepped up in a key way,” Scheyer said “All eight guys that played did some good things that contributed to winning.”
Pitt stayed close with 3’s
Pitt’s Capel talked earlier this week about his team’s shooting woes of late. It also hurt the Panthers that their leading scorer, sophomore guard Brandin Cummings, would miss Tuesday’s game with an ankle injury.
Shooting woes? Roman Siulepa, who had 19 points, knocked down three 3’s in the first half. So did Barry Dunning Jr., a 6-6 senior, as the Panthers kept it close in the first 20 minutes with 7-for-20 shooting on 3’s.
While the Devils were grinding away in their half-court offense, the Panthers’ approach was to milk the shot clock and let loose with a 3-pointer. Siulepa was shooting 30% and Dunning 31% on 3’s for the season but both were 3-of-6 in the opening half.
It was reminiscent of Louisville’s Aly Khalifa going 5-for-5 in the game in Louisville. But Siulepa and Dunning could not sustain it as Pitt missed eight of its first nine shots from 3-point distance to start the second half.
Pitt was 2-13 on 3’s in the second half in scoring 25 points, and 9-for-33 for the game.
“We held them to 54 points, so overall, a great defensive game,” Boozer said. “Our defense carried us throughout. They make it tough. They’re a scrappy team.”
No real flow to game
Neither team ever found a good rhythm. Duke had some ugly, ugly turnovers. But so did Pitt.
In the second half, Cameron Boozer was double-teamed near the right corner. The big man often has been able to spot and hit the open man, but hurled a wild pass out of bounds -- one of Duke’s 13 turnovers.
The Panthers had their share of ballhandling gaffes and 12 turnovers. Not long after Boozer sent his pass sailing towards the stands, Pitt’s Nojus Indrusaitis tried a lob pass that sailed well out of bounds.
Another late re-do
It happened again to Duke, albeit in a far different, less scary scenario.
With the first half about to end Tuesday, Pitt’s Damarco Minor airballed a shot. The clock ran out and the two teams quickly headed to their locker rooms.
Except …
The referees conferred and determined there was 0.6 second remaining. The teams came back on the floor and Duke was unable to make anything of it and the teams ran off the court.
At UNC, there was 0.4 second remaining after Seth Trimble’s 3-pointer gave the Tar Heels the lead And a court storming. And then another.
This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 11:11 PM with the headline "Duke basketball responds to upset loss with ACC win at Pittsburgh."
