Heading into the Columbia game, Duke women’s basketball had a lot of momentum. After beating two top-10 teams, Kansas State and Oklahoma, the Blue Devils wanted to finish their week strong with a win over an experienced Lions squad.
Although Duke secured a 77-61 win against the Lions, the game did not go smoothly for both teams. The two sides both recorded 20-plus turnovers throughout the game. Because of the rugged playstyle of this game, the winner was going to be the team with more grit.
Coming off a career-high 35 point game against the Sooners, Reigan Richardson had a similar impact against Columbia, including a quick floater to beat the shot clock in the third quarter. Along with 19 points, the 5-foot-11 senior collected seven rebounds. Rebounds were essential to this game overall as the Blue Devils collected a total of 44 rebounds compared to Lions’ 29.
“We need to have wings that can rebound … When your whole team can do it, it just takes a lot of pressure off of one specific player,” head coach Kara Lawson said. “That was definitely a challenge that we set forth for Reigan and Ashlon to start the year is to bring more on the glass. Certainly with the quantity of minutes they play, it's important that they give us rebounding.”
Aside from the guards collecting boards, key players like sophomore forward Delaney Thomas collected seven rebounds — four of them were offensive.
Duke’s depth also showed off in this game with 32 bench points compared to the Lions’ six. Their depth illustrated that it could turn to a multitude of options if the starting offense isn’t working smoothly; Jackson, Taina Mair and Jadyn Donovan scored 16 points combined. In the beginning of the first quarter, the Blue Devils secured two quick boards and passed it in transition to freshman Toby Fournier, who capitalized on the opportunities in the paint, scoring a quick four points.
“We place a high priority on having multiple players in our program that can impact the game … [The bench] all came in that first quarter, and I thought it changed the tempo of the game,” Lawson said.
Similar to Duke’s domination in the paint against Belmont, the Blue Devils scored 52 points in the paint compared to Columbia’s 40. By the end of the first half, Duke had eight more points in the paint, led by Thomas’ presence inside.
However, in the third quarter, the Lions outscored the Blue Devils by six in the paint, giving them a 21-20 scoring advantage in that quarter. When Duke successfully scored inside, the floor could be stretched and players like de Jesus were effective from three, going 2-for-2 on 3-point shots.
“I just do what I do, which is being aggressive and attacking, and then making plays,” de Jesus said. “I have great teammates. They ran the floor today, so they made my job easy.”
Duke now looks ahead to a highly-anticipated matchup against No. 4 South Carolina Thursday at 9 p.m.
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