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The 1st Half
The game between Duke and Wake was a sort of bizarro version of Duke vs
UNC from the other night. This time, the roles were reversed: it was Duke
being sent to the foul line early and often, and Wake forcing their
opponent to shoot off the dribble and abandon its commitment to getting
the best possible shot. When Wake started doubling on Alison Bales, that
made it even tougher for Duke. The Devils scored very few points in a
standard halfcourt set; they had a 26-5 edge in points off turnovers (with
many coming at key junctures of the game) and 16-5 in second chance points
(with most of those coming in the second half). A lot of that was due to
Wake's length and size bothering some of Duke's players and overall solid
team play by the Deacs. Reality dictated that Duke's defense was too good
for Wake to score against consistently, and they were simply too thin and
too young to make good decisions throughout the game.
The best development for Duke in this contest was the way the bench
played. Essentially, they were smart, aggressive and fluid on the floor.
It's been rare this year that the bench has combined all three qualities
at once, but it was that combination that allowed them to score 28 of
Duke's 42 second-half points. It's a good thing, because several of the
starters seemed a bit off in this game. That was especially true of Abby
Waner, whose shot seemed flat and hit the front iron a bunch of times, but
Harding settled for jumpers way too often, Carrem Gay got outhustled on
some plays and Alison Bales was in constant foul trouble. Of the
starters, it was Wanisha Smith who played the best overall game,
contributing in every phase.
Duke started the first five minutes of the game on a 9-1 run. Early on,
things were clicking nicely for the Devils as Smith hit a jumper and had a
stickback, Emily Waner came in and hit a three, and Abby Waner had a steal
that led to a Lindsey Harding basket. After a Corinne Groves score, Bales
passed to Abby, who made the extra pass to Joy Cheek for a layup. When
Lindsey Harding hit a 3 on a Bales feed, it looked like Duke was going to
run away with it quickly, given its 15-3 lead. Bales was causing the
usual problems on Duke's defensive end, as the Deacs were trying to shoot
over her to no avail.
Back-to-back threes by guards Yolanda Lavender & Alex Tchangoue put an
end to that thought, and the Deacs had a chance to cut further into the
lead when it was 15-11. Duke was missing open looks off the dribble, and
Harding in particular was fading away instead of going to the rim.
However, a Deacon turnover led to Bales hitting 2 free throws. Tchangoue
stuck back a a miss and Bales then got serious. She drop-stepped in for a
score (earning scorn for the referees from Wake coach Mike Petersen) and
then posted up for another basket after she came up with a steal. The
only negative was that she picked up her second foul shortly thereafter.
When Waner finished another fast break, it was 23-13 Duke. The Devils had
a few turnovers in the next sequence and Wake missed a bunch of shots.
Eventually, the Devils were able to grind it out a bit better, with 10 of
their next 12 points coming from the foul line. Wake prevented Duke from
running out any further than that, trading scores with the Devils, but
their shooting problems made it hard for them to really gain any ground.
Still, Duke's greater patience in attacking the basket got them a 15
point lead at half, despite scoring just 1 field goal (a Waner steal &
layup) in the last 8:55 of the half. Wake hung in there, but they had
foul problems of their own. They did win a major battle by outrebounding
the Devils in the first half and holding Duke to 10-30 shooting (33%).
They prevented Duke from getting second-chance opportunities, and that
clearly made the Devils tense. Petersen blamed himself for not doubling
Bales earlier, because Ali was killing his team one-on-one. When Duke
wasn't hitting shots, he could afford to double Bales and not get burned
from outside. He also lamented his team's turnovers--Duke had a 15-0 edge
in points off turnovers at the half, good for a 15-point lead. Petersen
noted that if his team simply took a 5 second count every time they were
trapped or just threw the ball into the crowd, it would have been better
than Duke getting easy scores. I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, but it
is true that Duke's traps got them running a bit and gave everyone a
little more energy.
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