Duke women make statement

Impressive 72-58 win over NC State in Reynolds

Let me throw out some basketball stats. An unranked team visits the nationally sixth-ranked basketball team. The unranked team makes 38 percent of its two-point shots, turns it over 17 times and gets all of four points from its bench.

In case you haven’t figured it out I’m talking about the Duke women’s basketball team and no I’m not writing their epitaph.  Instead, Duke overcame all of this to stun NC State 72-58.

How did all this happen? Well, Duke is playing really good defense these days. Excluding Connecticut Duke hasn’t allowed anyone to score more than the 58 points State scored Thursday night. The Wolfpack shot 34 percent from the field, turned it over 18 times and assisted on a miserly five of their 21 made field goals.

“You’ve got to tip your hat to Duke,” State coach Wes Moore said. “They came in here and in simple terms they kicked our butts. Very physical, very aggressive, took us out of anything we wanted to do offensively. They were able to get in between us and our picks and we weren’t able to get any good looks and ended up with a lot of jump shots.”

The game started like first-team-to-40-wins kind of night. State led 6-5 at the under-five media timeout.  Then Celeste Taylor hit a 3-pointer and Jordyn Oliver hit a layup and Duke was up 10-6, with 3:20 left in the first.

Then the wheels came off. State ended the period on a 7-0 run, the final three points a buzzer-beater by Jakia Brown-Turner. Duke went more than three minutes into the second period without scoring, by which point State led 19-10, a 13-0 run, the kind of run that knocks out teams, even good teams.

Why did it not knock out Duke?

“I think we know that basketball is a game of runs,” Celeste Taylor said. “The other team is going to go on a run at some point. I think that staying with our fundamentals, our defense. It starts on the defensive end.”

Kara Lawson’s thoughts?

“What I was most pleased with from our group is we kept our composure when they went on runs.  We just stayed focused, stayed locked in and didn’t allow the emotions of the game to overtake our execution.”

It helped that Duke had Taylor, clearly the best player on the floor, playing perhaps her best game in a Duke uniform.

“She carried us offensively,” Lawson said. “Even in the first half when we were having a hard time getting going against their defense she was the one player who could make plays for us. I thought her defensive game was better than her offensive game.”

Taylor ended that 13-0 run with a 3-pointer but that was only the beginning. Three-pointers by Elizabeth Balogun and Shayeann Day-Wilson kept the pressure on. Day-Wilson was fouled on a 3-pointer and made all three foul shots and Duke was back on top at 24-23. Taylor hit a mid-range jumper and a 3-pointer and Duke ended the half up 35-23, outscoring State 25-4 over the half’s final 6:52.

Taylor had 11 points at intermission, Balogun 10.

“My teammates were looking for me,” Taylor said. “I was getting open shots, good looks and I was knocking them down.”

The Wolfpack made several spirited runs in the second half, spurred on by a vocal home crowd that switched between enthusiasm and desperation.  They cut their deficit to 10 at 39-29, fell behind 43-29, closed to 45-38 but fell back when Taylor buried another triple. Taylor made it 50-40 with a jumper but State scored the final four points of the third and it was 50-44.

The lead shrunk to five at 52-47, with 6:47 left before Mia Heide made two foul shots, her only points of the game but big ones

That was as close as the rally came. Taylor hit a 3-pointer to make it 59-50, then two foul shots to make it 61-52.

It wasn’t just Taylor, of course. Balogun gave Duke 16 points and 7 rebounds, Kennedy Brown 10 points, 5 rebounds and 2 blocks.

Sophomore transfer Reigan Richardson struggled through a scoreless first half but fought through it with nine second-half points, the final 3 a bomb that put Duke up 66-56 with two minutes left and broke the back of the home team.

Duke ended 9 for 14 on 3s. That is not a typo.

“I’m so proud of Reigan,” Lawson said, “because she’s struggled with that, when something isn’t going your way, to keep a positive attitude, to stay confident in yourself. For her to come out in that second half and jump start us with those transition finishes, which were not easy, and I thought she hit a big-time 3 late that gave us that final separation.”

And Wilson continued her maturation as a playmaker, seven assists and no turnovers to go along with 10 points.

“Shy’s young,” Lawson noted. “She’s 19. She’s learning how to run a team. Tonight I thought she did a solid job of running our team, getting the ball where it was supposed to go.”

One additional data point. Duke was 15 for 15 from the line, 10 of those coming in the final quarter as State tried to lengthen the game.

“They were focused,” Lawson said of her team. “You’ve got to get those free ones.”

But let me end with Taylor. Twenty-three points, 5 of 6 from beyond the arc, a game-high 8 rebounds--she’s 5-11--and 2 assists.

Duke hosts Louisville Sunday and needs to build on this. Who knows, maybe even a few more wins and Duke can crack the polls, your scribe says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Wheels up at noon.