It took Kara Lawson two days longer than Jon Scheyer to get that first NCAA Tournament win.
Hopefully, she won’t have to wait until next season for that second win.
Duke played very well Saturday night but their 89-49 win over Iona was no surprise. There are a lot fewer Cinderellas in the women’s tournament than in the men’s.
There are two reasons for this. There simply isn’t as much depth in the women’s game as in the men’s game. The talent gap between, say a 3-seed and a 14-seed is much greater in the women’s game. And then top 16 teams--if they wish--get to host the first two rounds. Pulling off an upset on a neutral court is one thing, pulling off one on a hostile court is a whole different beast.
Iona came into Durham as a 14th seed, the champions of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. They were 26-6 and did have a few encounters with teams from power conferences, a 53-50 loss to Providence and a 77-51 loss to St. John’s.
Iona was glad to be there. This was their second NCAA appearance; the other was in 2016. Their coach Billy Chambers said they spent Friday taking pictures in “historic” Cameron, taking in the moment. When the post-game press conference was over, their players took their name identifiers as souvenirs.
Still, the Gaels had no shortage of energy and effort. But they were over-matched from the very beginning. It was 8-0 after 2:20. A 6-0 Iona run briefly interrupted Duke’s dominance but Duke answered by scoring the next eight points.
“Duke was awesome today,” Chambers said. “On the offensive side of the ball. On the defensive side of the ball. They just really took away what we wanted to do and were able to put the ball in the basket at a high clip.”
Duke hadn’t played in two weeks so some rust might have been expected. Elizabeth Balogun said Duke wouldn’t let that happen.
“We just stayed focused and ready. Every day at practice, we try to better ourselves as a player and as a team. That keeps us ready.”
Duke’s 89 points was their most since a 100-49 win over Richmond back on December 4 and the third-highest of the season. Remember, this is a team that had scored 41, 44 and 37 points in its previous three games.
Lawson said getting points in transition and off turnovers was the key to getting the offense back on track.
“I feel like most of the year we have generated quality transition opportunities. We have just tried to work through the year to continue to get better at converting them. There have been some games where our conversion rate was very low. We just have to keep working on it. We have done transition work every day in practice. It was nice to see them have really good success in the transition game tonight.”
Duke got 30 points off 18 Iona turnovers, a 14-0 advantage on fast-break points. And Duke bludgeoned Iona on the glass, 44-14, allowing the Gaels to grab only three offensive rebounds. Duke outscored Iona 25-3 on second-chance points.
Duke led 47-16 at the half. That’s more points than Duke had scored in any of of its three previous games.
Duke continued to extend its lead even while playing its usual rotation of ten players, all of whom played at least 17 minutes and none more than 22 minutes. Balogun and Celeste Taylor led Duke with 13 points, while Kennedy Brown had 10 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two blocks. Fourteen Blue Devils saw action, all but one scored and a good time was had by all.
Except Iona.
“I thought our team started the game with great intensity,” Lawson said. “I thought there was a preparedness about them. A respect for the opponent about them. And I thought all of our players that played tonight were really locked in to what we were trying to do. That is what you hope for. As a coach, in March, you hope that your team is locked in.”
Monday night’s round-of-32 match against third-seed Colorado figures to be a much sterner test. Colorado didn’t have much more trouble with Middle Tennessee State than Duke had with Iona. The final was 82-60.
Colorado is 24-8 and a member of the Pac-12, which means they have played teams at Duke’s talent level. They’ve lost twice to Stanford but the second loss was in double overtime. They beat UCLA in overtime.
Colorado outrebounded MTSU 43-29. Their leading rebounder, Quay Miller is 6-3, so maybe the 6-6 Brown will have an edge there. Danish guard Frida Formann is a sniper and Jaylyn Sherrod is averaging five assists per game.
But Colorado did turn it over 17 times against MTSU--they also had 21 assists. Forcing some live-ball turnovers and turning them into transition baskets could take Duke a long way down the victory trail.
As could a loud, enthusiastic home crowd. Tip-off is scheduled at nine.