There are a number of story lines from the Duke-Florida State women’s game Thursday night in Cameron.
But one dominates.FSU came into Durham averaging 83.5 points per game. And scored 46. Duke scored 88. Complete game. Epic beat-down. My goodness. What did we just see?
Duke trailed early, 3-2 and 5-4 before a 9-0 run.
Florida State went over four minutes without a point.
Still, the lead was only 13-9 when Ashlon Jackson beat the first-quarter clock with a 65-foot bank shot.
Lawson said she didn’t draw it up that way but it was a big three points.
“After they had closed the gap, it was definitely a big momentum shot for us. I thought we had played a pretty good first quarter and it looked like we were going to go into the [second] quarter only up by four. That shot stretched it out a little bit.”
Duke had seven turnovers in the opening period and missed 12 of 17 from the field, a good many of them layups.
But FSU was 4 for 21.
The only real crisis point after that came early in the second. O’Mariah Gordon and Alexis Tucker hit back-to-back 3s to cut Duke’s lead in half and compel Kara Lawson to call timeout with Duke up 25-19 barely four minutes into the second quarter.
“I was more disappointed in how they got those six points. It was two wide-open 3s. One we lost a player in transition, the other we did not play the scheme correctly. That team only needs a couple of 3s to get going. So, I was concerned that we were going to light fire down there and we wouldn’t be able to put it out.”
Duke responded with an 11-0 run, a three-point play by Delaney Thomas and a 3-pointer by Taina Mair jump-starting the run.
That made it 36-19 and Duke’s lead never again dropped below 15.
It was 40-22 at the half but I still kept expecting the 23rd-ranked visitors to make a run. It never came. Duke extended the lead to 55-28, then 62-34.
It was 64-40 after three.
Then it got worse for FSU. They somehow didn’t score for the first 7:22 of the final quarter. Not one single point. They missed their first 12 shots of the period, with three turnovers thrown in.
It was was 83-40 when the visitors finally found the fourth-quarter basket.
Some of Florida State’s offensive stats defy comprehension. They shot 22.4 percent (17 for 76) from the field, 5 for 25 from beyond the arc. They had six assists. Star Ta’Niya Latson was 6 for 17, with three turnovers. Makayla Timpson shot 2 for 9, Gordon 2 for 13, Sara Bejedi 1 for 13, Alexis Tucker 1 for 12.
Did I mention that Duke outrebounded the ‘Noles 58-35?
Whatever was ailing their offense, it hit everyone.
Maybe it was Duke’s defense that was ailing them. Nobody shoots that poorly without running into a good defense, a great defense.
It started with center Kennedy Brown, who had four blocks in the first period.
She ended the game with five blocks, 11 points and four rebounds.
Lawson called Brown “one of the best defenders in the country” and added that Brown was “as technically sound as any defender I’ve coached. She’s in the right position, she’s highly intelligent, she understands schemes.”
“We emphasized defense throughout our preparations for this game,” Mair added, “because we knew they were a high-scoring team and they were going to keep coming at us the whole game. We had to make sure we were in the right spots and communicating with each other.”
Mair had perhaps her best game in Duke blue, 18 points, seven rebounds, five assists, no turnovers, 4 for 7 from beyond the arc.
“Just playing my game,” she said.
Jackson ended with 13 points, followed by Brown, Thomas and Camilla Emsbo, all with 11 points. Freshmen Oluchi Okananwa and Jadyn Donovan had 13 and nine rebounds respectively.
Lawson liked the score of course. But she was most pleased with how her team responded to Sunday’s sub-par outing at NC State.
“I love it because of the bounce-back from Sunday. It’s critical in our league and just in competition in general that when you drop a game, what’s your response? How well do you play? Can you make that shift? I’m just so proud of my young team that they just stayed focused and confident in what we’re doing.”
Amazing game tonight. This team is so bi-polar! Which one will show up in Miami?