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Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski won his 839th career game Friday when the No. 7 Blue Devils defeated No. 13 Connecticut 68-59 in the NIT Season Tip-Off title game.

Duke was able to take a 37-28 halftime lead with an 8-2 run in an ugly last 4 minutes. Kyle Singler, who had his second straight poor shooting game, hit a 3 with 4:17 left that gave the Blue Devils a 32-26 lead. That was Duke’s last field goal of the half and the Huskies had just one in that span, a drive by Stanley Robinson with 51 seconds left that made it 37-28.

The second half was Duke’s in a hurry.

The Blue Devils used a 12-0 run — during which five players scored — to go ahead 53-34 with 13:18 to play. Calhoun called two timeouts in a 1:13 span in the run — he had already called one 1:30 into the half — to try and slow things down but the Blue Devils were scoring from the perimeter and overpowering the Huskies down low.

Duke finished 6 for 18 from 3-point range while the Huskies didn’t make any in four attempts.

“I didn’t want them taking 3s,” Calhoun said of his team, “I thought we had the quickness to go by them. (Duke) didn’t score on nine of 10 trips at one point in the second half but we scored on one of those. They outquicked us to the ball when they needed to get it to the offensive end, which is something that can’t happen to us.”

The Blue Devils even stayed with Connecticut in blocked shots, not an easy thing to do since the Huskies have led the nation in that stat the last eight seasons — and they averaged 10.3 coming in. The Huskies blocked 13 in each of their last two games, a total Duke managed in all five games combined. Connecticut finished with nine, two more than the Blue Devils.

“Our big guys were coming over and at least if they didn’t take charges, they were trying to take charges and they got a few blocks. They distracted the shooter, kind of like how they did to us,” Krzyzewski said of his team’s help defense. “I thought shooters in the lane today was not a good place to shoot the ball. There were a lot of distractions defensively being made by both teams for those shooters.”

Connecticut did get within single digits with a 12-2 run that made it 62-54 with 52 seconds to play.

“I’m appalled by the lack of rebounding by us as a team,” Calhoun said. “You can’t beat anybody if they get 25 offensive rebounds. If you hold somebody to 28 percent, you can’t lose, but if you give them 25 offensive rebounds and can’t make a shot, you can get some problems.”

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