In a quintessential team effort, the Blue Devils stepped up their intensity in the second half Sunday to blowout USC-Upstate.
After taking a 44-24 lead at halftime, No. 6 Duke (7-2) held the Spartans to 11 points in the second half en route to a 93-35 victory at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Despite enjoying a 20-point advantage after the first twenty minutes, the Blue Devils were not pleased with their performance in the first half.
“I thought we were just a little bit sluggish,” head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “We talked about it—I didn’t talk about it, [the players] talked about it—at halftime.”
The halftime conversation, led primarily by sophomore Haley Peters and junior senior Kathleen Scheer, achieved the desired effect as Duke dominated USC-Upstate (1-8) in every aspect of the game after the break.
In the second half alone, Duke outscored the Spartans 34 to six in the paint. From the field, it shot 65.5 percent to USC-Upstate’s 14.3 percent. Following halftime, the Blue Devils grabbed 11 more rebounds, forced 11 more turnovers and scored 38 more points than their opponents.
“In the second half, the bottom kind of fell out and they blew it open pretty big,” USC-Upstate head coach Tammy George said.
Freshman Elizabeth Williams paced the Blue Devils in the win with a career-high 22 points on a perfect 10-for-10 shooting effort, the second-most shot attempts without a miss in Duke history. Three other Blue Devils put up double figures in the win, including Peters, who matched her career high with 17, and Scheer, who matched her season high with 10.
Sophomore Chloe Wells also had a career-high seven steal effort, a byproduct of Duke’s suffocating pressure on defense. The Blue Devils continued to employ a full-court press late into the game, creating 27 points off turnovers in the second half alone.
In its half-court defense, Duke dropped into a zone for most of the second half, successfully taking advantage of its size. The undersized Spartans had no answer for the 2-3 zone—they had only 12 points in the paint for the entire game—and were forced to attempt 22 3-pointers in the contest, only making three.
McCallie also utilized her bench during the game, playing eleven different players in the first half.
With just eight points, junior Tee’Ara Copney led USC-Upstate, which is in its first full year of Division-I eligibility and begins conference play next week.
Vernerey and Scheer were efficient in the post off the bench in the second period, combining for 17 points.
“Their guards were bigger than our post players,” George said. “That’s something we have to get used to.”
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