Rutgers Downs Delaware as Griff, Inman Return; Duke Avoids Rhode Island Scare

Junior center Hamady Ndiaye scored a career-high 26 points and Rutgers shot 60 percent from the floor as the Scarlet Knights defeated Delaware, 85-77, in the Garden State Challenge Sunday afternoon at the Carpenter Center.

Freshman guard Mike Rosario added 17 points and sophomore guard Corey Chandler chipped in 13 for Rutgers, which improves to 2-0.

Seniors JR Inman and Jaron Griffin returned from their team-mandated suspensions to play their first games. Inman collected 2 points, 4 rebounds and 3 points in 16 minutes, while Griffin tallied 1 rebound and 1 assist in 4 minutes.

“They’re doing a great job,” Rutgers head coach Fred Hill said Friday. “They’re doing everything that we’ve asked of them. That will be my decision [when they come back] and when I see that they’ve done everything that they needed to do, we’ll bring them back.”

The two had not played in last Monday’s exhibition against Caldwell or Friday’s season-opening win over Marist due to an undisclosed violation of team rules.

LATE FREE THROWS RESCUE DUKE FROM UPSET AT HANDS OF RHODE ISLAND

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Kyle Singler hit two free throws with 19.4 seconds left to help Duke (No. 5 ESPN/USA Today, No. 8 AP) rally past Rhode Island 82-79 on Sunday.

Jon Scheyer scored 23 points, and Singler finished with 21 points for the Blue Devils (3-0), who fell behind by 12 early and trailed for most of the way.

Singler twice hit a pair of foul shots in the final minute to put the Blue Devils up by one, before Rhode Island called timeout with 10.6 seconds left and worked the ball to Jimmy Baron. With Singler in his face, his fallaway jumper glanced off the rim, clipped a Rams player and went out of bounds with 4.9 seconds on the clock.

Jon Scheyer made two free throws with 3.7 seconds left, and Baron’s halfcourt heave bounced off the glass as time expired to seal Duke’s NCAA-best 62nd straight nonconference home victory at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Baron scored 21 of his 24 points in the second half and matched a career-high with eight 3-pointers for Rhode Island (1-1), and Delroy James added a career-high 21 points.The Rams made 7-of-9 3-pointers in the second half and finished shooting nearly 55 percent, but were denied their first victory against a ranked team since 1998 and its first win against an Atlantic Coast Conference team since 1987.

Still, for 39 minutes they were a serious threat to become the first non-ACC team to win at Cameron since St. John’s did it in February 2000. The Blue Devils have won 192 of its last 195 nonconference home games.

Nolan Smith added 10 points for Duke, which won its first two games by an average of 37 points. Maybe the Blue Devils should have expected a tighter contest from the Rams — both previous meetings between the schools came in the NCAA tournament and each were decided by one point.

The Rams led for much of a first half in which they made 13 of their first 21 shots and forced the Blue Devils into exactly the kind of slump usually reserved for their guests at Cameron. Poor shot selection led to Duke’s 4-for-19 start from the field, and the Blue Devils went nearly 10 minutes between field goals.

Rhode Island then took its largest lead with 3 1/2 minutes before the break when Steve Mejia’s three-point play made it 34-22. But the Blue Devils finished strong, closing the half with 11 straight points. Scheyer’s driving layup with 1.5 seconds left made it 34-33 at halftime.