Jared McCain, on the way to a scintillating 30-point scoring night, scored Duke’s first basket with a 3-pointer. Roach hit a pull-up jumper. Filipowski rebounded his own miss for a dunk that put Duke up 7-2.

When Proctor scored before McCain added two more 3-pointers, Duke held a 15-5 lead and James Madison would never draw closer than seven points the rest of the game.

“That’s exactly how we wanted to come out,” Filipowski said. “We did a great job on the defensive end. We did a great job staying poised and holding our own against them. That just turned into great positive vibes for us as a team.”

It was among the Blue Devils’ most dominant performances of the season. They had no let up, choosing not to coast with their comfortable lead. Instead they kept building it, leading 47-25 at halftime and pushing to 30 points with a little less than nine minutes to play.

That’s a big deal,” Duke graduate student center Ryan Young said. “Something that we were talking about the whole game, especially at halftime, you know? Because whoever loses this game, their season’s over. They’re going home. And that’s a different feeling when you’re that team.”

Duke refused to be that team on this day.

Where Wisconsin turned the ball over 19 times, Duke finished with just six. Only one came from one of the Blue Devils’ guards.

Duke limited JMU to 38% shooting as the Dukes turned the ball over 14 times. JMU hit only 4 of 18 3-pointers.

For all his impressive shooting Sunday, McCain offered this assessment about how Duke defended both against JMU and while holding Vermont 25 points below its season scoring average while blasting the Catamounts, 64-47, in Friday’s first round.

“You want to be playing your best in March,” McCain said, “and I feel like right now this is our best basketball, especially defensively. When we play defense, it’s like no one can stop us. We have too much talent.”

Thus far in the NCAA Tournament, it’s been a combination of talent, attention to detail and toughness that’s proved lethal to Duke’s opponents.

Also, toss in the motivation from a certain loss a year ago and these Blue Devils are quite formidable.

“I definitely reminded the team this morning,” Roach said, “just how we felt last year at the Tennessee game.”

That hurdle has been cleared this season, moving Duke to Dallas to face the South Region’s top seed, Houston, with a Final Four berth just two wins away.

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