John Wooden once said, "Never mistake activity for achievement." Offensively, Duke was quite active, but achieved little outside of Jasmine Thomas' incredible effort in the last two minutes of each half. Part of that was a function of Kentucky pushing the tempo such that Duke seemed to want to rush shots or take them off balance. Duke's size and strength (combined with Kentucky going exclusively to man-to-man defense) gave them a tremendous advantage around the basket, one that they squandered by short-arming shots and bringing the ball down after one of their 27 offensive rebounds. Duke had just 13 second-chance points and blew other opportunities by shooting only 58% from the foul line. In the first half, Duke was whistled for travel after travel but managed a late-half push to take a 9-point lead. In the second half, Duke missed their first 18 shots but managed to stay in the game thanks to their defense, dominant rebounding and valuing of the basketball (just 2 turnovers in the half). When it came to winning time, Duke finished the last 2:38 on an 8-0 run. That included a clutch jump shot by J.Thomas, a drive by Chelsea Gray that got deflected into the basket, and some brilliant team & individual defense. The bottom line was that once Duke was in position to win, they made all the plays and stayed mentally strong. Still, one couldn't sense that Duke was making things harder for themselves than needed. Their defense and rebounding was at an elite level, but the team couldn't get out of its own way on offense and so didn't reward itself for strong hustle play. As Duke proceeds through its season, they have to find ways to finish easy plays.

Duke Blue Devils Team Box Score

PTS FG FG % 3FG 3FG % FT FT% A O-D-REB BLK STL TO PF 1st 31 12-38 31.6 2-9 22.2 5-6 83.3 4 16-15-31 0 9 15 9 2nd 23 6-30 20.0 1-5 20.0 10-20 50.0 3 11-10-21 6 4 2 9 TOT 54 18-68 26.5 3-14 21.4 15-26 57.7 7 27-25-52 6 13 17 18

Kentucky Team Box Score PTS FG FG % 3FG 3FG % FT FT% A O-D-REB BLK STL TO PF 1st 22 8-22 36.4 1-7 14.3 5-9 55.6 6 1-9-10 5 4 14 6 2nd 26 10-24 41.7 2-8 25.0 4-9 44.4 2 7-19-26 3 1 8 13 TOT 48 18-46 39.1 3-15 20.0 9-18 50.0 8 8-28-36 8 5 22 19 Please support DWHoops with a site membership today! Click Here to Learn More