It looks like that next banner is going to have to wait. Maybe next week. Maybe next month. Maybe next year. Maybe longer.
It was all teed up for the Duke women’s basketball program. No ambiguity, no uncertainty. Beat North Carolina at home and secure the top seed in next week’s ACC Tournament and at least a share of the regular season title.
And a capacity crowd of 9, 314 to boot.
And Duke did so many things well. Duke forced 21 Tar Heel turnovers, held them to 34% shooting, won the battle of the boards 38-30, held UNC’s leading scorer Deja Kelly to 2 for 9 shooting and led for most of the game, three times by seven points. North Carolina scored 45 points. For the game.
And Duke still lost. 45-41.
And Notre Dame came from behind late to overtake Louisville. So, not even a share of a title.
How does a top-11 team score 41 points at home? UNC coach Courtney Banghart thought the game was a defensive masterpiece.
“Two of the very best defensive teams in the league really brought that.”
And truth be told Duke’s defense was better than Carolina’s offense and Carolina’s defense was better than Duke’s offense. The game was decided in the final minutes at the foul line--more on that later.
But from my mid-court vantage point there were too many unforced turnovers, too many clanked layups, too many passes to nowhere to let the offenses completely off the hook.
About those turnovers. Duke had 25. Against six assists.
That is not a winning assist to turnover ratio.
“I've heard this story about how in football, there's a story behind every interception,” Kara Lawson said. “There's a story behind every turnover, I don't know if I can break down all 25 of them for you. But some was their disruption to us, I thought they were very disruptive defensively. Some was us not being on the same page offensively: one player running one play and other players running another play. And some of its poor decision making: everyone is running the right play, but a player makes an error in judgment, to throw a ball that maybe they shouldn't have, to try to thread a needle, or it's an inaccurate pass. I think it was a combination of all those things. That really hurt us because when you turn it over, a team now can transition against you, and they can get going. I think that the number one factor for us was turned over 25 times.”
Still, the Tar Heels were just as bad. Except their turnovers tended to be dead-ball turnovers, travels a particular go-to. Which meant Duke got zero points in transition. As in not a single, solitary point.
Duke’s turnovers were more of the live-ball variety, which led to six transition points for the Tar Heels. That’s not a lot for 15 steals. But it’s six more than Duke got.
Still, Duke seemed poised to take command of the game on multiple occasions. Duke held Carolina to two points over the final 6:10 of the opening period and took a 14-8 lead after 10.
Carolina scored the first five points of the second period but a 6-0 Duke run made it 20-13 with less than a minute remaining in the first half. But Destiny Adams hit a triple and the half ended 20-16.
Elizabeth Balogun started the second half with a 3-pointer and it was 23-16.
Duke didn’t score for four minutes, a mind-boggling eight turnovers in a span of 3:35.
The Tar Heels regained the lead at 25-23.
Reserves Vanessa de Jesus, Ashlon Jackson and de Jesus again scored six points for Duke in the final 3:29 and the third ended 29-29.
Maybe some offensive spark?
Neither played in the final period.
Still, Duke scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter, a 3-pointer by Celeste Taylor and short jumpers by Balogun and Shayeann Day-Wilson, the latter’s first field goal 32 minutes into the game.
The Tar Heels were on the ropes and that ACC title was just sitting there, waiting to be grabbed.
Then a funny thing happened.
I’m going to go into just-the facts, ma’am mode here.
The officials called eight fouls in the first half, five on Duke. They called 11 in the third period, six on Duke. They called 13 in the final period, eight on Duke. Eight fouls in the first half, 24 in the second half.
Duke was up 36-31 when Celeste Taylor had a 3 spin out. Good possession, good shot, bad result. Then Carolina’s Paulina Paris went to the line, with 3:35 left. She made both.
Taylor missed another 3.
Paris was fouled again, with 3:06 left. She made both. 36-35.
Taya Corosdale converted an offensive rebound for Duke to end a five-minute scoring drought but Kennedy Todd-Williams tied the game at 38-38 with a 3-pointer from the baseline.
Clutch make in a game without a lot of clutch makes.
Another Duke turnover, another Duke foul, two more Carolina foul shots, this time by Todd-Williams.
A Duke miss, a Carolina rebound, a Duke foul, an and-one by Kelly, another foul shot, and Carolina led 43-38 with 1:16 left.
That’s a 14-2 run.
Five Carolina possessions with the game on the line and four of them ended with them going to the line. Twelve points in five possessions.
And they made all seven foul shots. Credit where credit due. Maybe they did a better job of adjusting to the officiating but it’s hard to argue that something didn’t change.
Duke still had a chance down 43-41, with less than 40 seconds left. But another foul, this one on Day-Wilson 30-feet from the basket gave Kelly a chance to close it out and she did just that.
That was a no-call in the first half. And yes, that’s an opinion not a fact.
Duke ended up hitting 5 for 6 from the line, Carolina 12 for 15 in a game in which North Carolina led for only 8:26.
Of course, it didn’t have to come to that. Taylor has been one of the ACC’s best players this season but this is not the Senior Day she imagined, not in her worst nightmares, 2-10 from the field, nine turnovers. Reigan Richardson and Jordyn Oliver split time at the other wing and combined for 0-10 shooting, zero assists and four turnovers. Duke was 4 for 16 from beyond the arc. Day-Wilson was 2-7 from the field, two assists, three turnovers. There was a game to be won well before those final few minutes and Duke simply did not win it.
“What determined the game was our inability to take care of the basketball and make shots late,” Lawson said. “They made shots late, we didn't. I think we had three threes go in and out in that fourth quarter: good looks and they just rattled in and out. They had a three that swished. You look at a margin, if you take away free throws, that can be the difference in the game. I think them getting into the bonus in the third and fourth quarters helped them score. As I look, they only scored 45, but 12 of them are from the line. In a game that is so low scoring, giving double-digit points on the line, when they were struggling to score against our defense like that, is probably the number two factor. Looking at factors, it was the turnovers and then the free throws.”
Balogun was Duke’s only effective offensive weapon, with 12 points. But she played only 24 minutes.
Kelly, Todd-Williams and Alyssa Ustby led Carolina with nine points apiece. Not a single double-digit scorer. Forty-five points is the fewest points North Carolina has ever scored in a winning effort.
All season long I’ve wondered out loud if Duke’s marvelous defense was good enough to cover for a shaky offense against good teams. The answer has been positive most of the season but that clearly was not the case this afternoon and tougher tests await if Duke is going to do something special in March.
Still, Duke is 24-5 overall, second seeded in the ACC Tournament, still likely to host the first weekend of the NCAAs.
And there’s a very real chance Duke and Carolina will meet a third time next weekend in Greensboro. Duke has a double-bye, while the Tar Heels square off against Clemson or Pittsburgh, the winner playing Duke Friday at six.
“The good thing for us is that we get a chance to snap right back and get over to Greensboro and see if we can put something together there,” Lawson said. “So, just forward-looking. This will hurt for a little bit, I mean, it's not like I can just say, 'hey, put it behind.' It hurts for them. [The team] is frustrated and disappointed, but when we get ready for Greensboro, I know I'll have them. I've said this a lot to y'all [the media], every time we've lost this year, they've done a great job of snapping back, not wallowing in, and just being ready to give a good effort. So hopefully we can do that.”