AARON BEARD
AP Basketball Writer
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Kyle Singler scored 20 points and Jon Scheyer hit a critical 3-pointer with 18 seconds left to help No. 4 Duke beat Georgia Tech 65-61 in Sunday’s Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship game.
Scheyer finished with 16 points for the top-seeded Blue Devils (29-5), who let an 11-point lead with 6 minutes left slip all the way to one before Scheyer’s big shot. Nolan Smith also had 16 points to help Duke earn a league-record 18th tournament title, breaking a tie with rival North Carolina.
In a tournament filled with upsets, it took a gritty effort from Duke’s high-scoring “Big Three” to hold off a determined comeback from the seventh-seeded Yellow Jackets (22-12), who were trying to become the first team in tournament history to win four games in four days.