Despite leading the nation with three wins against top-10 ranked opponents, there is one win that Duke does not have on its résumé this year.
A conference road victory.
The No. 3 Blue Devils (15-0, 1-0 in the ACC) get their first chance to change that when they face No. 21 Florida State (14-3, 2-0 in the ACC) in Tallahassee, Fla. tonight at 6:30. Coming off a thrilling victory over No. 14 Maryland at home to open up its ACC schedule, Duke looks to push its season-long winning streak to 16 games in its first road ACC game of the year.
Head coach Joanne P. McCallie is ready to take on another tough challenge and thinks that the Blue Devils’ recent wins against ranked opponents will help them in this game.
“We are just excited,” she said. “Our schedule has been really hard and [previous] games have been really good preparation. You always have be ready to battle.”
Part of the battle will take place underneath the basket tonight. Krystal Thomas as well as the entire Duke team will need to emphasize rebounding against a Florida State squad that ranks 11th nationally with a 10.3 rebounding margin.
“Rebounding [needs to be] really consistent because Florida State is a big team with a lot of post presence,” McCallie said.
Following Friday’s game against the Seminoles, the Blue Devils will play another road ACC contest at Virginia Tech Sunday in Blacksburg, Va. The Hokies will be the first non-ranked team Duke will play after facing three straight ranked opponents, including Florida State. McCallie believes the difficulty of this ACC road trip will help Duke in the future.
“It really helps us for the NCAA Tournament,” the coach said. “We talked about going two-for-two against Kentucky and Maryland [at home]. The same is true when you are... in the NCAA tournament, you are on the road a lot if you are successful. For us, it’s trying to go two-for-two.”
As always, senior Jasmine Thomas remains a key player for Duke. She looks to lead the No. 1 freshman recruiting class into their first road ACC road games. Recently nominated as one of 20 midseason candidates for the John R. Wooden Award for National Player of the Year, Thomas has seemed to save her best for last in recent games. She led the Blue Devils to several late victories over Winter Break, and in their most recent win against Maryland, the senior had seven points over the final 1:58 in the game.
“She is always in attack mode, whether it is defense or offense it doesn’t matter,” McCallie said. “And I think that’s something we want modeled by the other players and especially the younger players that are coming in and learning the ropes a little bit.”
The Blue Devils are off for four days after this road trip and will play next at home against Georgia Tech on Friday, Jan. 21.
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