SOUTH BEND, Ind.— In what has been a season of redemption so far for the Blue Devils, one thing had continued to elude them—a road win against a ranked team.
After a promising start, the frustrating trends that have led to poor results on the road returned to plague Duke again.
The No. 14 Blue Devils fell at No. 8 Notre Dame 62-58 Thursday night at Purcell Pavilion after a late rally came up short. Junior Lexie Brown’s 22 points were not enough to overcome a dominant performance from Fighting Irish All-American Brianna Turner, who scored 25 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to finish with an imposing double-double.
Despite holding a 24-17 lead at the end of the first quarter, Duke’s offense went cold, and the Blue Devils allowed 18 offensive rebounds to let Notre Dame pull away late in the game. Although Duke went on a 7-0 run in 50 seconds to cut the deficit to four with 1:31 left, Brown and redshirt junior Rebecca Greenwell missed late 3-pointers to seal the team’s fate.
With Turner leading the way, the Fighting Irish grabbed a string of second chances to put together a 6-0 spurt midway through the fourth quarter that proved too much for a rattled Blue Devil squad to come back from.
“Their run was getting three and four offensive rebounds in those possessions. It was hustle play after hustle play. The game was taken at that point where we gave up the o-boards,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “It’s that simple. We played some great defense. We forced bad shots, those shots were misses, I think it was three in a row. We’d like those possessions back.”
The Blue Devils (17-4, 5-3 in the ACC) entered the final frame only trailing by four, but were initially unable to muster a rally as their offense let the team down again in a critical situation. They only scored seven points in the first eight minutes of the fourth quarter, including a drought that lasted more than three minutes.
Notre Dame (19-3, 7-1) took advantage of 11 second-half turnovers, with senior point guard Lindsay Allen dishing out 12 assists to allow the Fighting Irish to overcome their early deficit at home. Notre Dame stretched the fourth-quarter lead to 11 with its 6-0 run before Duke’s late rally.
More intense defense on Brown—who carried the team’s offense for much of the night and played all 40 minutes—let the Fighting Irish slow down the Blue Devils. Although Greenwell and freshman Leaonna Odom also scored in double figures, Duke’s turnovers prevented the team from stopping the bleeding with timely baskets or free throws.
“They did throw a lot of defenders at me. I personally probably went a little too fast at times when I had Lindsay on me,” Brown said. “She did a good job. She was literally under me.”
Allen’s aggressive defense came in handy when the home team used another crippling 6-0 run at the end of the third quarter to claim a four-point lead. Turner capped the initial run with one of her six offensive rebounds and a put-back and was a force all game long.
With Odom and senior Kendall Cooper in early foul trouble, Turner enjoyed a feast of lobs and layups to keep Notre Dame’s high-octane offense afloat even though the Fighting Irish went 3-of-16 from 3-point range. Notre Dame finished with 36 points in the paint, and the trend of Duke losing when getting outrebounded this season continued.
“That might be one of the best games I’ve seen [Turner] play all year. We did not take away her ability to get to the basket for all those layups or lobs,” McCallie said. “We got in foul trouble, and that was not good…. That definitely affects you, but we’ve got to grow past that.”
Even with Turner asserting herself from the start of the game, Duke’s ability to slow down Notre Dame’s other players put the road team in good position for the win. With Brown, who went 4-of-9 from 3-point range, red-hot from the start, the Blue Devils led for the entire first half by only committing four turnovers to keep their opponent out of transition.
But once the Fighting Irish started denying the junior All-American touches in the second half, Duke unraveled, with many of its miscues coming on out-of-control drives or seemingly simple passes.
Although the Blue Devils prevented every Notre Dame player other than Turner from scoring in double figures, their offense extended their two-year streak without a road win against a ranked opponent. The Fighting Irish have now beaten Duke eight straight times since joining the ACC in 2013.
“That’s the game. For both defenses, you have to credit the intensity for the bad shooting. For the turnovers, we’re going to have to look in the mirror on that one,” McCallie said. “I feel like we went very, very fast in the second half. I think that in looking at the film, we’re going to find that out…. We should have been able to handle those situations. I think that’s going to be the thing that makes our stomachs ill when we see those turnovers in the second half.”
The Blue Devils will look to get back in the win column Sunday at home against Wake Forest.
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