Some heavyweight matchups are decided by who’s a better puncher, and some come down to who can land the best shot late.
In the stretch run of its conference slate, Duke women’s basketball lost a tight tilt Thursday evening, welcoming Louisville to town after an away loss to No. 1 Notre Dame. The Cardinals landed their haymakers down the stretch and got the best of the Blue Devils 70-62.
The two sides entered Thursday evening’s matchup with the fourth and fifth best records in the conference, with the winner all-but sewing up a double-bye come ACC Tournament time.
Both teams traded blows throughout the evening and into the fourth quarter, and junior guard Ashlon Jackson drained a tightly contested three before a Louisville offensive foul set the Cameron Crazies ablaze. Despite the drama, neither team was able to pull ahead. The game remained knotted at 52 with only an eighth of the game left on the clock.
“It was a possession game late, and they did a better job executing in the pivotal moments of the game,” head coach Kara Lawson said. “That's how they were able to get the win. We've got to improve in that area. We've lost three of our four conference games in those kinds of possession games late, and that falls directly on me.”
After the two teams had continuously been trading buckets, Merissah Russell drove into the paint and landed the game’s gut punch with 1:44 left on the clock, converting on a layup as the shot clock expired to take a 64-60 lead.
A pair of made free throws from Louisville (19-7, 12-3 in the ACC) and an Oluchi Okananwa layup kept the margin at four, but the Cardinals managed to draw the clock down to 16.5 seconds before Jayda Curry stepped to the free-throw line. Just like the first half, Curry quieted Cameron Indoor, calmly knocking down both shots to ice the game.
Curry was dynamite for the visitors, as the senior scored 24 points and expertly drew seven fouls en route to shooting 9-for-9 at the free throw line, more attempts than Duke’s entire team.
“I thought their experience was a difference late, when you look at who made the plays for them late, it was their experience,” Lawson said.
The Blue Devils (20-7, 11-4) came back out of the locker room with an offensive vigor viewers have come to expect from this group. Four and a half minutes into the new half, the home squad cut the deficit to two, 41-39. Okananwa, the reigning ACC sixth person of the year, fed Taina Mair with a touch pass over two defenders to find the point guard cutting to the rim for a high-speed layup.
Immediately after, Reigan Richardson stuffed a midrange attempt before finding Okananwa herself on a long-range outlet pass to put a bowtie on an 8-2 Duke run with a tough layup.
Despite the thrilling matchup on the floor in front of them, the Thursday night crowd was relatively quiet heading into the end of the third quarter. However, that all changed when sophomore forward Delaney Thomas secured what seemed to be her sixth rebound of the evening amidst three Cardinals, but the official whistled for a jump ball to the dismay of the Cameron Crazies.
When Louisville airmailed the inbounds pass and Vanessa de Jesus dove on the court for a loose ball, the blue-clad fans exploded. The ball eventually found its way into Okananwa’s hands and then through the hoop for her team-leading fifth bucket of the night.
Not to be one-upped, Donovan elevated with two seconds left in the quarter and connected on her third midrange jump shot of the game home to beat the buzzer, tie the game at 45 and send Durham in all-out hysteria going into the fourth.
Very little was going right for the Blue Devils in the first half. They shot 53.8% overall, but only 1-of-8 from beyond the arc. They turned the ball over 12 times, struggling to break a ferocious half-court defense from the Cardinals. With the shot-clock ticking down, Louisville’s Jayda Curry swished a 3-pointer, taking a 35-27 lead with 16 seconds left.
In the closing minute of the second quarter, Mair brought the ball up the court, walked right into a double team and was forced to pass over the top of her defenders towards Donovan. Ja’Leah Williams jumped in front of the point guard’s prayer, taking the ball back to the other end of the floor, eventually leading to Curry’s make.
Williams’ steal was just one taste of Duke’s own medicine in the second quarter, as the Cardinals swarmed the ball whenever the home team settled into its half-court offense, forcing 10 turnovers in the frame alone. Along with their defensive salvo, the Cardinals rained 3-pointers before halftime, shooting 4-of-6 from beyond the arc in the quarter and winning the quarter 22-15.
Coming into the matchup, Louisville sported one of the worst 3-point shooting marks in the conference, a meager 31.4% mark. Despite this, it shot 5-of-9 from downtown in the beginning half, including Curry’s first gut punch.
“I'm really pleased with the year we've had, but we're not having enough players play well every game right now,” Lawson said. “We've had games with four players in double figures. We've had games where we scored a lot. We've had games where we shut people down. We've had those and we haven't had that lately. We've got to get back to that so that's my job to figure out.”
The Blue Devils will look to get back to their standard of excellence Sunday with a 2 p.m. home matchup with Syracuse.
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