ATLANTA - A year ago, as they walked off the court afterr another early exit from the NCAA tournament, Jon Scheyer and Gerald Henderson made sure to soak it all in. They didn't want to forget how much it hurt. They didn't want to forget how it felt to be denied a championship.

On Sunday, they finally got their title.

Led by its two junior stars, No. 9 Duke swamped upstart Florida State with a barrage of 3-pointers on the way to a 79-69 victory in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, giving the Blue Devils their eighth ACC crown in 11 years.

Scheyer scored 29 points and was named tournament MVP, Henderson had 27 and Duke (28-6) turned in one of its most complete performances of the season to keep their Tobacco Road heirloom from heading down to the Sunshine State. It couldn't have come at a better time, with NCAA bids going out a couple of hours later.

How complete? Duke had more steals (five) than turnovers (four), outrebounded the taller, bulkier Seminoles 35-34 and buried Florida State with a 12-of-25 showing from beyond the arc.

The Blue Devils claimed the second seed in the East Regional and will face Binghamton on Thursday in Greensboro, N.C., not far from their Durham campus.

The genesis of this championship can be traced to the final game last season. After losing in the ACC tournament and survived a first-round scare from Belmont, the Blue Devils were eliminated in the second round of the NCAAs by West Virginia.

"We wanted to remember that moment. We wanted to remember how it felt," Scheyer said. "That was something we never wanted to experience again. We wanted to do whatever we could to never let it happen again."

The Blue Devils watched hated North Carolina celebrate at the last two ACC tournaments. Now they're back in a more familiar position.