Duke took the early lead in their semi-final match up with Michigan and never gave it up as the Blue Devils advance to their fifth Maui final in five tries.
The Blue Devils played perhaps its best first half of basketball building a 15 point lead only to watch it slip away and then build it back to 12 before halftime.
The second half was pretty much a repeat with Duke shooting lights out from behind the arc before staving off one last Michigan comeback and winning 82-75 improving the to 6-0 on the season.
Duke was well balanced on offense getting double figures from four starters including 20 from Austin Rivers, 17 apiece from Ryan Kelly and Seth Curry and 14 from Andre Dawkins.
Rivers continues to improve his all around game and added three assists and four rebounds to his stat line. Curry is also enjoying a hot start to the season as he was 6-7 from the floor and perfect from behind the arc and at the free-throw line.
Dawkins play so far in Maui has also been solid and his all around game along with Kelly's has been huge for Duke who hasn't gotten so much from the Plumlee brothers Miles and Mason.
If there has been one disappointment in the two wins it may be the performance of the Plumlees who have been in foul trouble for much of the tournament. They also have gotten into the bad habit of dribbling too much leading to those fouls and turnovers.
Mason hasn't been as bad as Miles, but neither has had a tournament to remember.
There was a lot of anticipation about the Duke-Michigan match up following last year's thrilling NCAA game and the off-season controversy involving former Michigan great Jalen Rose's now infamous documentary in which he was critical of Duke and made some inflammatory comments about Duke's African American players like Grant Hill.
At the beginning of the game and for large stretches of the game it didn't even look like the Wolverines were even close to being on the same level as the Blue Devils, but the Wolverines managed to keep in the game by taking advantage of Duke's lulls and mistakes.
One has the feeling that if Duke can avoid all of those ebbs in their play that they will be winning more games by far larger margins than what they've been doing so far this season. Regardless, Duke advances to another Maui Final Wednesday night at 10 p.m.
The Blue Devils will take on the winner of the Kansas and UCLA game. We will have a look at that opponent later and how Duke will match up with them.
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