Duke escapes hot-shooting Trojans again

Jasmine Thomas had another big offensive outing for the Blue Devils, scoring 28 points in Duke’s 78-72 win.
Jasmine Thomas had another big offensive outing for the Blue Devils, scoring 28 points in Duke’s 78-72 win.

Duke extended its dominance in Cameron Indoor Stadium Sunday afternoon, holding off a depleted Southern California squad for its 19th straight home win, 78-72. The No. 11 Blue Devils forced 22 turnovers and outscored the Trojans 42-8 in the paint, but barely avoided an upset after a first half of uncharacteristically sloppy play and Southern California’s hot three-point shooting.

The Blue Devils (7-1) maintained their undefeated all-time record against the Trojans, yet their most recent meetings have been tightly contested. Sunday’s game was the second time in two years that Duke has overcome a double-digit point deficit to beat Southern California (4-4).

The Trojans, despite only having eight available players, gained leverage early by outhustling the Blue Devils up and down the floor. Southern California jumped out to an early 14-5 lead behind two 3-pointers from Ashley Corral, and continued adding to the advantage with quick transition offense and outside shooting. Corral shot 5-of-7 from beyond the arc in the opening period, and finished the day with a team-high 26 points and nine assists.

“Ashley has done a lot for us. She’s actually done more than she’s supposed to be doing,” Trojan head coach Michael Cooper said. “She’s almost like our Magic Johnson; she does a little bit of everything.”

To make matters worse, Duke found itself inept from outside the paint, shooting at a 33.3 percent clip for the half. Despite having a significant size advantage inside, missed layups cost the Blue Devils chances to cut the lead. However, gritty drives by Jasmine Thomas and efficient post play by Joy Cheek kept Southern California from pulling away. Although the team trailed by as many as 14 points during the half, Duke managed to enter halftime down only eight, 41-33.

“I think Joy and her leadership was tremendous,” Blue Devil head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “She hit some huge shots for us and kept us talking out there and that’s very, very important.”

The second half began in the same way as the first, with the Trojans knocking down open jump shots while Duke missed easy layups, and the lead rose to 11. Soon after, though, the full court press that McCallie had been tinkering with throughout the game finally began to pay off.  Karima Christmas woke up her Blue Devil teammates by earning three steals and four points in just over a minute of play to cut the lead to single digits.

“She [Christmas] was mighty,” McCallie said. “She was very physical and she took it in hard. The touch she has is just fun to watch.”

More 3-point misses from Southern California helped Duke claw closer and take the lead with nine minutes remaining after a three from Thomas.

The Trojans’ Heather Oliver’s consecutive three-pointers made that advantage short-lived, but Duke continued to work the ball inside. Four different Blue Devils scored in the following three minutes, highlighted by the tough play of freshman Allison Vernerey, who recorded her first career double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds.

“She’s a pistol,” said McCallie. “She’s very, very aggressive and she seems to get more aggressive sort of on a daily basis.”

Thomas had six points over the final three minutes of the game to keep Duke on top, as Corral missed several desperation 3-point attempts in the final minute. Thomas quietly racked up a game-high 28 points despite 8-of-20 shooting by going 10-for-10 on free throw attempts, most of which came in crunch time.  

Despite her team’s sloppy play early, Cheek was very pleased with the Blue Devils’ performance.

“We talked about will, and I knew that game would take a lot of will when we were down by 14,” Cheek said. “It was a gut-checking game and I think we came through.”

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