Auburn pushed the top-ranked Duke Blue Devils to the brink, and came up just short in a 78-72 loss in the Maui Invitational semifinals.
The story of the first half was Auburn’s inability to get to the foul line and the cold start from the floor, while Duke did just the opposite. R.J. Barrett and Cam Reddish paced the Blue Devil offense to start, with the pair scoring the first 10 points of the game as Duke built a 10-4 edge at the first timeout. Auburn fell behind 22-8 at the next break, and trailed by as many as 17 points in the first half when Zion Williamson’s first basket fell with 6:44 left in the opening half.