DeMarr Langford Jr. fearlessly attacked the paint against Duke center Mark Williams. The 6-foot-5 sophomore guard used his bunnies to rise up toward the rim, only to collide with the 7-footer. Williams stopped the shot, and both players hit the floor of a sold out but Blue Devil-heavy Conte Forum.

Seconds later, Duke forward Wendell Moore Jr. sank a 3-pointer from the right wing, feet away from Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum, who used to wear Moore’s number five years ago.

Langford relentlessly challenged Williams in the second half, even after taking a flagrant one whack to the eye. He didn’t back down, and neither did his BC teammates.

Duke, strapped with four guys who could hear their names called in this year’s NBA Draft, simply had too much offensive firepower for Earl Grant’s Eagles to overcome.

After a powerful James Karnik two-handed flush and six straight Langford points that drew BC within seven, the Blue Devils erupted for a 20-6 run that allowed them to coast to a 71-62 win.

The No. 7 Blue Devils (21-4, 11-3 ACC) may have finished strong, but that’s from how they started. Duke hit just one of its first four shots and turned the ball over three times in the opening three minutes. Led by Karnik, BC (9-14, 4-9) staked itself to an early, 6-2 lead.

Eagles players call Karnik “Captain Canada.” But, with fellow center Quinten Post out because of COVID-19 protocol and forward TJ Bickerstaff limited with a first-half calf injury, the Surrey, British Columbia, native had to be Superman Saturday evening.

The 6-foot-9, muscly center came close with 21 points and nine boards.

“Karnik played great tonight,” Krzyzewski said. “When he plays well, and he’s played well most of the time—against Virginia Tech here, he owned the game. Pretty much for a while, he was owning this game until our big guys started responding.”

One of those big guys was power forward Paolo Banchero. The 6-foot-10, 250-pound freshman took advantage of a smaller-than-usual BC rotation. Missing Post and Bickerstaff meant the Eagles were switching to a four-guard look. Krzyzewski admitted that he wasn’t expecting that lineup, and it proved fruitful for BC. That is, on one end of the floor.

“I think it helped us offensively a little bit, but, defensively, it wasn’t working in our favor,” Grant said.

Banchero turned in a 16-and-14 double-double and had three of the Blue Devils’ 13 offensive rebounds. He threw down an emphatic dunk as part of a 9-0 run that got Duke in motion.

Despite the size mismatch, the Eagles kept pace with the lone ACC team in the AP Top 25. Backup center Justin Vander Baan, forward Gianni Thompson and guard Kanye Jones all saw time, but the Eagles’ offense was fueled by Karnik and Langford in the first half.

Late in the period, Langford received a transition feed from his older brother, Makai Ashton-Langford, and finished with a layup despite being fouled by Moore to pull within two points of Duke, 26-24.

Except, an 11-4 Blue Devils run to end the half—capped by a Mark Williams dunk—tipped the scale. And BC never quite evened things out.

Both teams struggled to get shots to fall at the beginning of the second half. BC converted a mere two of its first nine field goal attempts, although one of them was a timely 3-pointer from Makai Ashton-Langford that kept the Eagles within 10 points of Duke.

The closest the Eagles got to equilibrium was when they used an 8-0 run to make it a 51-44 game with 11:20 to go. That’s when Langford’s six consecutive points kicked in. Four of them came at the line.

As was the case for most of the game, though, Moore helped the Blue Devils keep their distance. The junior, who was sent airborne by Clemson’s David Collins on a dunk attempt earlier this week, was 4-of-5 from beyond the arc against the Eagles.

His final make returned Duke’s lead to double-digits, and it stayed that way.

“He's been in cold, hot tubs from the fall at Clemson,” Krzyzewski said. “For him to even be playing at this level right now is a hell of a thing for this kid.”

Piloted by a fierce Karnik, BC shrunk its deficit from 21 to 10 in the waning minutes of the second half, however, the Eagles’ valiant effort was too little, too late.

Fans, including a dense student section, stayed the whole game. It was an atmosphere unlike any other BC has had at home this season.

“It gave me a good picture of what it should look like as we continue to try to build a program and, hopefully, get to the point where it's always like that,” Grant said.

“And all of them are cheering for us.”