The Duke women’s basketball team played some serious rope-a-dope Thursday night against Virginia Tech.
It’s generally not a good idea to fall behind 13-1 in a college basketball game. It’s really a bad idea to fall behind 13-1 against a borderline top-10 team coming off a Final Four season.
But after that woeful start Duke used its edge in athleticism to force the Hokies into one live-ball turnover after another, many of which resulted in transition baskets.
The end result was a stunning 63-46 Duke win, one that moved the Blue Devils to 4-2 in the ACC, 12-5 overall.
It took Duke over seven minutes to notch its first field goal, a high degree-of-difficulty reverse layup by Reigan Richardson that made it 13-3.
By that point the Hokies had already knocked down three triples including a shot-clock buzzer-beater by Cayla King, who was so off-balance that she stumbled into the Duke bench and took out what appeared to be a trainer’s bag or backpack, scattering debris onto the court.
King disentangled herself, sprinted up court and disrupted Duke’s five-on-four by deflecting a pass out of bounds.
That kind of night.
Until it wasn’t.
Richardson is a junior and one of Duke’s more experienced players. She said her message to the team in those doleful early minutes was to lean on each other, keep talking, keep communicating.
Kara Lawson[‘s take?
“I think we just tried to settle down. Their spirit was in the right place and their effort was in the right place and they wanted to play hard and make things happen and I thought, offensively we were just out of control on some offensive plays and then defensively we didn’t do our scheme the way we were supposed to do.”
Tech hit four 3-pointers in the opening period and Elizabeth Kitley was 3 for 3 inside and it was 18-7 and Duke wasn’t going to beat a team on track to make 16 3-pointers.
Richardson said “we really had to make them shoot over our length.”
Mission accomplished. Tech made one 3-pointer over the final three quarters.
Still, Kitley was a monster, scoring inside three more times in the second quarter, her trademark fall-away jumper virtually unguardable.
But she didn’t get any help. Tech players not named Kitley scored two points in the second quarter.
Duke finished the half on a 12-6 run, a jump shot by Richardson with 38 seconds left and a transition basket with 15 left ending the scoring.
Duke outscored Tech 14-8 in the second period, closing to 26-21 at intermission.
Not only had disaster been averted but Duke went into the half with some real momentum on their side.
Which they carried into the third quarter.
Ashlon Jackson scored a modest five points in the first half. But she scored eight in the first three minutes of the third, giving Duke its first lead of the night at 27-26.
It wasn’t all offense. The highlight of game may have been Jadyn Donovan stuffing Kitley in the lane, a 6-0 freshman blocking a fifth-year 6-6 All-American.
Tech lost star point guard Georgia Amoore with 6:36 left in the third, an apparent head injury in a scramble for a loose ball on the floor.
Duke was up 29-26 at the time, the game trending blue.
But Amoore did not return and her absence was significant.
Tech certainly didn’t respond well to her absence. After Kitley made it 29-28 Duke scored eight points in transition in 71 seconds, expanding Duke’s lead to 37-28 and forcing Kenny Brooks to use two timeouts.
“I just felt like if we could grab a hold of the game a little bit, we could get some stops,” Lawson said. “And then the stops allow you to run. That’s what's important for us and that’s when we can get out and run.”
The Hokies never made a run. Richardson made a couple of jumpers in the half-court, Camilla Emsbo added four points and Oluchi Okananwa knocked won a triple and it was 48-34 after three.
Duke outscored Tech 27-8 in the third, 41-16 in the two middle periods and had 15 fast-break points in just the third period, leveraging their quickness advantage into something approaching a beat-down.
To borrow a phrase or two, Duke played the third quarter going downhill against a Tech team back on its heels.
“I feel like we came out swinging,” Richardson said of Duke’s second-half dominance. “I feel like in a couple of games we came out, in the second half, pretty slow. So, I feel like today we had to bring the energy.”
Tech never got any closer than 12 in the final quarter. Duke actually led by 20 at 61-41 on another Richardson jumper.
At that point Duke had outscored the 11th-ranked visitors 60-28 since those opening minutes.
Richardson led Duke with 22 points, nine more than Jackson.
“I thought Reigan was terrific, “Lawson said. “She had an unbelievable first half defensively. She was disruptive, really wreaking havoc. In the second half, offensively, I just kept going to her. I thought she just had a complete game. She is one of the best wings in this league.”
Kitley led the Hokies with 18 points and 10 rebounds. But only one of those rebounds came on offense and Kitley was held to two points in the final period.
Duke had a 38-34 rebounding advantage and forced Tech into 20 turnovers, while committing 12. And Tech made only 33 percent from the field, while missing 13 of their last 14 3-pointers.
Duke had a 19-0 advantage in transition points. A testy Kenny Brooks noted in the post-game that Tech isn’t a fast-break team. But zero points?
“We did emphasize get back and get matched up as quickly as we could,” Lawson said.
NC State next on Sunday, in Reynolds, the Pack coming off a 14-point loss at Miami. Still, a dangerous team, especially for a Duke team whose best performances recently have come at home.
But Duke just held Virginia Tech to its lowest point total of the season and that kind of defense travels well.
“We’ve played close in games that this and lost,” Lawson said. “We haven’t been able to figure out how to win a big game yet. We have a young team and the growth is coming and you can see it. We’re getting better.”
Wheels up a noon.
I was following the score on ESPN game tracker and was blown away by that 3rd quarter. Didn't dare jinx it by turning it on the TV. I imagine the home crowd must have been amped!