I hope your NFL team won. Because it was a lost weekend for Duke hoops.
Fresh off a huge win over Virginia Tech and carrying a three-game winning streak in the ACC, the Duke women made the short trip down I-40 to Reynolds Coliseum and brought a 72-57 defeat back with them.
Duke is a young team. The nine-player rotation includes three freshmen and three sophomores, Even the three veterans are in either their first or second seasons at Duke. Not a lot of experience playing together on the road in a tough environment, like a sold-out sea of red against an N.C. State team stinging from a 14-point loss at Miami last Thursday.
Consistency frequently is a concern for young teams, especially on the road. But Duke seems to be going backwards. Early on Duke had solid road wins against Georgia and Columbia--they’re 12-5--and an overtime loss at Stanford. And they did beat Virginia on the road two weeks ago. But two of their three most recent ACC road games have resulted in a 16-point loss to Clemson and a 17-point loss to Louisville.
Add today to that list.
In fact, it was a perfect storm of the maladies that have befallen Duke when they’ve struggled. Duke turned it over a jaw-dropping eight times in just the first period. The Blue Devils were called for four fouls in the first four minutes. After Kennedy Brown put Duke up 2-0 with a mid-range jumper and another for a 4-3 lead, State went on a tear, 20 points in the final seven minutes of the opening stanza.
It was 23-13 after one.
State wing Aziaha James had 11 points in those first 10 minutes.
“I thought they played with great effort, great passion, great physicality,” Kara Lawson said of State, “and we didn’t handle that well, the intensity at the start. That happened to us Thursday [against Virginia Tech]. we got down early in the game. We have to figure out a way not to put ourselves in that hole.”
Duke made one serious dent in that lead. Reigan Richardson scored twice and Jadyn Donovan scored in transition and it was 24-19, three minutes into the second.
That was about it. Donovan was fouled on that basket but air-balled the subsequent foul shot.
State responded with a 10-0 run and went into halftime up 38-23.
Thirty-eight points against a team whose identity is built around getting stops..
Duke had 12 turnovers at intermission and missed all but one of its eight 3-pointers.
“We were out of rhythm,” Lawson said of her offense. “I thought we were hurried more than anything.”
The Wolfpack extended its lead to 20 at 48-28 and then 23 a couple of times, as Duke simply couldn’t string together anything on offense or defense.
It was 59-38 after three.
Duke kept scrapping and actually forced State coach Wes Moore to call a timeout at 62-49.
But it was too little, too late.
The final stats were sobering. Duke never could slow down James, who had a career-best 33 points. State shot better from the field, had an 18 to nine advantage in made free throws, had more rebounds, fewer fouls and fewer turnovers than Duke and held the visitors to a woeful 25 percent (4-16) from beyond the arc.
But those 72 points, the most Duke has allowed since Clemson scored 80 back on December 7.
“James made some tough shots, Lawson said. “I thought we were undisciplined defensively. They got 18 points from the free-throw line. That’s a lot of points from the line. And certainly, the turnovers as well. They had 24 points off turnovers. That’s your recipe to get your point total higher. Those are like freebies
Brown led Duke with 14 points, hitting 7 for 14 from the field. But she only grabbed two rebounds. Richardson had 11 points, Oluchi Okananwa 10--but six turnovers.
Sophomore Ashlon Jackson had a horror show, scoreless in 28 minutes, missing all eight of her shots, with one assist and three turnovers. Her plus/minus was -29.
Next play. Duke hosts Florida State and their marvelous sophomore guard Ta”Niya Latson Thursday night at the somewhat unusual time of 6 P.M.
“We just ran into a really good team,” Lawson summed up, “an experienced team and they beat us. Ultimately at the end of the day that’s what happened. They were a better team today. We have to take that on the chin and not whine or complain or worry about anything. We have to see what they exposed and then we have to go back to work and get better.”