BLACKSBURG, Va. —Battling turnovers and without their sophomore star yet again, the Blue Devils faced another one of the crunch-time situations that have not been kind to them throughout the season.
But that changed Thursday night as the Blue Devils ended a three-game losing streak with a 66-62 win against Virginia Tech at Cassell Coliseum. Although Duke struggled to take care of the ball, committing 22 giveaways, a balanced offensive attack in the second half helped the Blue Devils edge past the Hokies in the final minutes of the fourth quarter and get back to .500 in ACC play.
“We’ve been undermanned and we’ve been working very had to play together. Too many turnovers. Sometimes we go too fast. Despite the turnovers, pushing that aside, we made some very big plays. It was exciting to make those big plays,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “Our team played more aggressive and harder in the second half. We made some adjustments. We went after it more.”
Freshman Kyra Lambert scored her first points of the night with 52.7 seconds remaining, giving Duke (18-10, 7-7 in the ACC) a 63-62 lead. Chidom tacked on a free throw with 17 seconds left, and redshirt sophomore Rebecca Greenwell put the game out of reach with two makes from the charity stripe with 4.5 seconds to go.
Chidom led the way for the Blue Devils with 16 points and 11 rebounds, and Greenwell came within one board of her own double-double, chipping in 15 points.
After Duke took a 53-48 lead in the fourth quarter, the teams went back and forth in the last four minutes. A jumper by Hokie guard Sidney Cook—who scored a game-high 20 points—gave Virginia Tech a 62-61 lead with less than two minutes remaining, before Lambert's jumper put the Blue Devils ahead for good.
Duke assisted on 16 of its 25 made field goals Thursday, and eight of the nine Blue Devils who saw the floor had at least two points.
“We stuck to what we were doing well. We moved the ball pretty well. We got a lot of assists,” Chidom said. "We were talking on the defensive end and just played together.”
Playing without star forward Azurá Stevens for the fifth straight game as the sophomore nurses a torn plantar fascia, the Blue Devils came out of the gates in rhythm, taking a 16-11 lead and shooting 53.8 percent from the field in the first quarter. Despite committing four turnovers, McCallie’s squad was able to slow down the tempo and limit the Hokies’ opportunities in transition.
After Duke built its momentum in the first minute of the second period, Virginia Tech (15-11, 3-10) went on a 15-5 run during the next 4:21 to jump in front, 26-23. As the Blue Devils’ turnover total continued to mount, the Hokies began to score more points in transition and knock down shots from the perimeter. Cook finished 3-of-4 from downtown, and Vanessa Panousis and Hannah Young added three apiece as well.
Chidom led the Blue Devils down low with 10 points in the first 20 minutes as the Blue Devil backcourt struggled to get going. Greenwell made just one of her first five shots, and Duke entered the locker room at halftime with 12 turnovers and trailing 31-27.
But in the third quarter, the perimeter attack came alive as freshman guard Angela Salvadores and 6-foot-4 guard Amber Henson each knocked down two shots from beyond the arc. The success from behind the arc opened up more space for Chidom and Henson to operate down low, carving out scoring opportunities on the block.
“When you don’t have an All-American like Azurá in there…it always helps to spread the floor. Amber’s two threes in the second half were huge because people don’t guard Amber on the perimeter,” McCallie said. “One of these days, she’s going to hit a million threes because she can really shoot the ball, but she’s often not guarded out there.”
Duke returns to Cameron Indoor Stadium Sunday for its final home game of the season, hosting Georgia Tech at 2 p.m.
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