Duke’s women defeated Coppin State 68-34 Thursday night to run their record to 8-4 in Duke’s final non-ACC regular-season contest.
The loss dropped Coppin State to 3-11.
After a month of exams, holidays, travel and sporadic practicing, no one expected a well-oiled machine and they certainly didn’t get one.
Knocking off the rust is why this game was played.
There was a lot of rust. Duke hit only 3 of 18 from beyond the arc, shot 40 percent overall and committed 15 turnovers.
Then again Coppin State shot 28 percent from the field, 2 for 12 on 3s and committed 19 turnovers, with only 4 assists. Duke had some defensive lapses, mostly in the second half but for a program built on defense, it’s hard to find too much fault with allowing anyone 34 points, even a 3-11 team.
Duke also dominated the glass against an under-sized Coppin State team, 50 to 26 to be exact, with freshmen Jadyn Donovan and Oluchi Okananwa each grabbing eight rebounds.
Coppin State didn’t score for almost the first eight minutes of the game, by which point they already trailed 17-0. Duke led 20-3 after one period, 36-9 at the half.
“I thought the first half defensively, we were pretty good,” Kara Lawson said. “The second half was poor. Offensively, I thought we were pretty poor the whole game. I thought we got great looks. We’re a much better shooting team than we shot tonight. Thankfully, it wasn’t a game where we needed the points.”
Kennedy Brown acknowledged “it wasn’t a perfect game for us by any means.”
And for the record Lawson said her team had two great practices since coming back after Christmas.
But she also cited foul trouble “keeping us disjointed,” especially Taina Mair playing seven scoreless minutes in the first half after picking up two fouls; Lawson is very conservative playing players with fouls.
Kennedy Brown (10 points, 3 rebounds) said the second-half slippage came from “letups on both ends of the ball that we can’t have going against ACC [teams]. We’re growing and we’re a young team so we’re going to have those.”
Coppin State had an 11-0 run in the fourth to cut Duke’s lead from 34 at 55-21 to 23 at 55-32. Duke hit reset and extended the lead back to 34 at the final buzzer with a 13-2 closing run.
Lawson acknowledged that Duke had some lineups on the floor that it may have practiced with but not played in games. Benefits down the line? Maybe if the same situation occurs.
Still, everyone played at least 13 minutes, no one more than 24. Okananwa led Duke with 13 points. She was joined in double figures by Brown and Reigan Richardson who scored all 10 of her points in the first six minutes.
Duke plays Boston College Sunday in Duke’s ACC home opener. Brown said her team “was all excited” for ACC play. “It’s going to be a grind every night and they know that and I think we’re ready to take that step.”