Duke women with two big road wins

Morer to come?

Road Warriors?

It might be premature to give that designation to the Duke women’s basketball team. After all they have road losses to Maryland, South Carolina, South Florida and North Carolina.

But the trend lines are looking better after two quality road wins last week.

Duke made its first ever trip to Dallas last Thursday to play SMU, the third straight match against one of this season’s ACC newcomers. The Blue Devils blasted California and Stanford the previous week but both were at home.

SMU isn’t very good this season. They’re currently 10-11, 2-7 in the ACC. But they hung with Duke for a quarter. It was 24-21 Duke after 10 minutes. But Duke tightened up on D and led 46-25 at the half. And no four points in a quarter isn’t the bottom of the trough for SMU this season. Pitt outscored them 28-0 in the third quarter of their 72-59 win earlier this month.

I wasn’t a math major or anything but I’m reasonably certain it’s not possible to score fewer than zero points in a quarter.

The Duke-SMU final was 81-46.

SMU coach Toyelle Wilson said “Duke is probably the best team we’ve played all year,” which is something considering that they lost to Notre Dame earlier this year.

Then again the Irish beat SMU by 24 at home, Duke beat them by 35 on the road.

So, there’s that.

Duke had a tougher row to hoe Sunday in Atlanta, squaring off against 18th-ranked Georgia Tech. The Jackets had regrouped after a three-game losing streak with wins over Clemson and Virginia. Freshman star Dani Carnegie was in her second game back after missing three games—two losses—with an injury and Tonie Morgan was coming off a triple-double,

This did not project as an easy game and it wasn’t. Rock fight. Sharks v. Jets. No blood, no foul.

You get the gist.

Duke made 3 of 12 from beyond the arc, Tech 1 for 20. Both teams shot below 40% from the field. Duke shot six foul shots. They made them all. But six foul shots? Six?

Tech led by six points four times in the opening period. But Duke refused to let the home team get away and trailed only 18-17 after one.

Duke outscored Tech 14-9 in the second to take a four-point lead into halftime but Tech won the third 18-14, which left the two teams tied 45-45 after three.

Duke put on a defensive masterclass in the final stanza. Remember we’re talking about a top-20 team at home in a game crucial to post-season seeding. And Tech scored five points. The home team shot 2 for 19 from the field, going the final 5:13 without a field goal—one foul shot.

Duke’s offense wasn’t much better. But Oulchi Okananwa gave Duke what it needed, a jumper to put Duke up 49-47, another to make it 51-47 and a lay-up to make it 55-49, with 4:02 left.

After that no one scored until Tech’s Kara Dunn made one-of-two-from there line with 26 seconds left.

Yes, Duke went the final 4:02 without a point in a close game and still won.

The win moved Duke to 8-1 in the ACC, 17-4 overall, Remember Duke’s only ACC loss was in overtime, to UNC.

Duke moved to 10th in the AP poll.

Duke hasn’t allowed more than 59 points in eight games since that December 21 loss at South Florida.

By any rational metric Duke’s defense is truly elite. But the offense still has issues. It’s certainly the best of Lawson’s Duke tenure, as 81 points against SMU suggests.

But Duke has failed to top 60 points three times in the last six games.

Certainly Reagan Richardson’s on-going shooting slump is a concern. She was 2 for 16 at Chapel Hill and the same in two combined games last week. She’s 3 for 18 from beyond the arc over the last six games and only went to the foul line four times over that span.

On the other hand there are lots of other hands. Ashlon Jackson scored only four points in Atlanta but tallied 49 in Duke’s three previous games. Okananwa has recovered from early season woes and might be playing the best ball of her career. Delaney Thomas has become an efficient low-post option.

Then there’s freshman Toby Fournier, whose injury scare turned out to be minor. She’s had a 23-point (Cal) and 24-point (SMU) game since coming back.

Without putting too fine a point on it, Duke has not had much of a robust post presence in recent years.

She’s that low-post game-changer we’ve been waiting for.

But Taina Mair might be Duke’s best player right now. She’s a pure point guard in a world of multi-position players. She doesn’t always score a lot, although she had 12 points against Georgia Tech.

But over the last five games she’s had 25 assists, two turnovers and 10 steals.

It’s hard to do much better than a 12.5 to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

Kara Lawson knows something about elite point-guard play.

“The first thing, she’s improving defensively as the year’s gone along,” Lawson said of Mair. “We need to be very good at the point-guard position defensively. T has taken that to heart and grown on the defensive end. Overall, her understanding of our scheme is improving.

“Offensively, she’s really taking to heart that her job is to do whatever it takes to help us win. Some nights that’s going to be scoring. Some nights it’s going to be passing. It’s always going to be managing the game and commanding the team. That’s always the job.of a point guard. As a junior she’s growing in that understanding of where her teammates are most successful out on the court, how to deliver the ball and to continue to play at a good pace.”

Duke is in the middle of an extended lay-off following the Georgia Tech game. Next up is a Monday matchup at NC State, Duke’s fifth road game in seven games, three against ranked opponents.

State is 16-4, 17th in the AP poll. Remember they made last year’s Final Four and they have lots of key holdovers from that team, Aziaha James, Saniya Rivers and Madison Hayes among them.

Duke is eighth in the NET, State 21st and both are playing for an opportunity to be one of the 16 hosts in the NCAAs.

Duke’s defense should keep them in any game. But I’d feel better with more than 60 points.