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The Nutshell by Rob CloughDuke can take some small comfort that their losses have gone from "humiliating"
to "embarrassing" to merely "excruciating" against Penn State. The Devils had
dominated this series, but playing yet another road game against a young but
solid foe initially displayed all the flaws that had been in evidence all year.
When Penn State bolted out to a 15-point lead against a listless Duke team in
the first half, it looked like Vanderbilt all over again. Once again, Duke was
without Wanisha Smith and was also missing Krystal Thomas, out for 4 weeks with
a kneecap injury. Duke missed Thomas when Chante Black had to sit for
stretches with foul trouble. In that first half, Duke committed 13 turnovers,
only got to the foul line 3 times and sent the Lady Lions there 13 times. If
one could put a fine point on the real issue, it was communication. Duke
played mostly a man-to-man defense with some zone principles. Penn State
shredded it by penetrating and then acting on Duke's mistakes. In some
instances, a post defender would meet the penetration (usually Carrem Gay), but
no one would rotate over to stop penetration, resulting in tons of easy baskets
off the dribble. In other instances, a simple pick-and-roll confounded Duke.
In the second half, the Devils stopped penetration but allowed PSU's guards to
pull up and take short jumpers. As a result, Duke shooting 58% from the floor
in the second half (and 7-10 from three!) was trumped by Penn State sinking an
unthinkable 67%.
The good news from this game is that the team finally showed some fire when
they
were being outplayed and started working the ball around for better shots.
Abby
Waner (6 threes), Jasmine Thomas (15 points in the second half) and Karima
Christmas all had huge plays down the stretch. Coach McCallie finally saw a
lineup crystalize in front of her and did a decent job massaging Black's foul
trouble. The Devils hit some improbable shots and came up with some tremendous
defensive plays down the stretch. That said, such heroics would have been
unnecessary if the team had played with that much cohesion in the first half.
It's pretty clear that the starting lineup of
Black/Gay/Mitchell/A.Waner/E.Waner isn't working well as a unit. In the second
half, McCallie finally started Thomas, and that was a big key to Duke's
comeback. While Cheek and Gay battle for that other starting spot (Cheek got
the nod in the second half), it seems clear that the team needs the quickness
and playmaking of Jasmine in the lineup from the get-go, and can get valuable
bench contributions from Mitch and/or Emily Waner, both of whom played much
better in the second half. This group became more emotionally invested in the
game in this configuration, and seemed to snap into sharp focus when pressuring
the ball, shooting the ball and sharing the ball. Hopefully, the Penn State
loss was the final trial in this team's early development, because Duke will
have an enormously difficult final exam when Rutgers comes to town.
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