On Tuesday, November 26th, the Duke Blue Devils lost at the buzzer to the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks to finish off a back and forth game that ended in overtime. This lost set Duke’s 150 game non-conference home win streak back to zero and ready to start up again.

Before the buzzer-beater that set the NCAA world on fire, the two teams were ready to play. At the end of the first half, the Blue Devils led the game by 5 at a score of 45-40. Duke team seemed to be struggling on defense despite the lead.  

Following the lack of defense in the first half, Coach Krzyzewski addressed the team on their struggles on defense. Duke guard Cassius Stanley stated, “It’s kinda what we deserved… We didn’t listen to him, and it hurt us eventually at the end.” Duke allowed even more points in the second half and ended up tying the game at 81-81. 

As overtime started, both teams went out there ready to play defense. Both teams combined only scored 6 points in overtime. As the game was coming to a close both teams were tied 83-83 with 15 seconds left.  Duke PG Tre Jones shot a jumper and ended up missing. Lucky enough, Duke forward Wendell Moore was able to get the rebound. But, with the heavy pressure defense the Lumberjacks played, Moore was not able to hold the ball for long as he ended up turning the ball over with about three seconds left. This was Duke’s 22nd turnover of the game.

What the Duke team didn’t know was that SFA forward Nathan Bain was going to grab the ball and run up the court for the layup to win the game. Bain’s play sealed off the Lumberjack win and set Duke’s non-conference home win streak back to zero. Bain talked about his play later in an interview stating, “I looked up at the clock and saw I had 2.6 seconds, just going as fast as I can to lay it up. Like a layup drill. Prayed it would go in…I wasn’t sure if the guy was going to foul me or not. Get it on the rim to give us a chance.”

Nathan Bain ended the night with 11 points in 34 minutes. Duke center Vernon Carey Jr. ended with a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds. The Duke Blue Devils would end up 6-1 and Stephan F Austin would end up 5-1.