Florida State thoroughly dismantled Duke Sunday in a women’s basketball game. The final score was 70-57 but it wasn’t that close.
Duke scored two points in the first six plus minutes. The defense kept Duke in it for awhile and Duke even took a short-lived lead at 8-7. But FSU closed the first period on an 8-4 run and opened the second on a 7-1 run as Duke scored one point in the first five minutes of the second.
Duke made another run tying it at 22-22, with 2:54 left in the half.
But that would be Duke’s last hurrah. The ‘Noles finished the half on an 8-0 run and took a 30-22 lead into intermission.
It wasn’t just shaky shooting and turnovers galore. FSU didn’t shoot much better. But they kept grabbing offensive rebounds, four in one sequence with Duke down 24-22, a sequence that ended only when Makayla Timpson knocked down two foul shots.
Florida State scored the first seven points of the third quarter to go up 37-22 and Duke never again got the deficit into single digits. The third period ended at 51-34 and Florida State got their lead up to 24 points several times in the fourth quarter before Duke managed to nudge the final margin back into something remotely approaching respectability. But the outcome was never in doubt after the first few minutes of the second half.
Duke ended the game shooting 26 percent from the field, turned it over 17 times-13 in the first half-, committed 23 fouls and was out-rebounded 48-46. Shayeann Day-Wilson was Duke’s only double-digit scorer, with 14 points. Vanessa de Jesus added nine off the bench. But the four starters other than Day-Wilson combined to shot a woeful 6 for 39.
Duke coach Kara Lawson said Florida State “really disrupted us defensively, got us to turn the ball over, particularly in the first half and just battled.”
Lawson noted the 32 FSU free throws.
“We were just undisciplined ourselves defensively.”
Makalya Timpson dominated inside for the winning team, 21 points, 10 rebounds, 3 steals and a block. She got to the foul line 15 times, making nine. Lawson said Duke simply didn’t do a very good job of one-on-one defense and let FSU get the ball inside too easily.
Freshman sensation Ta’Niya Latson added 15 points for Florida State.
Lawson gave credit to FSU but acknowledged that all of Duke’s starters could have played better and Duke simply cannot beat good team when that happens.
Duke has a chance to rinse this one out next Thursday hosting Pittsburgh. With road games against Notre Dame, Miami and Virginia Tech looming this looks like a must-win if Duke is going to compete for the regular-season title.