TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — No. 22 Florida State welcomed No. 11 Duke to the Tucker Center having just come off a thrilling upset over then-No. 3 Notre Dame. The five-point victory represented the Fighting Irish’s only home loss this season and added onto the momentum built up from the Seminoles’ ranked victory over Georgia Tech just days before. In South Bend, Ind., Florida State’s Ta’Niya Latson and Makayla Timpson combined for 45 points to stun their Hoosier state hosts with an 86-81 overtaking.
Latson, standing at 5-foot-8, leads all of NCAA Division I basketball in points per game. Before facing head coach Kara Lawson’s gauntlet, the junior guard averaged 26.0 points per game; Sunday night, the Miami native only tallied nine points on 3-of-21 shooting.
“What our goal is, when we come out to play against anybody, is just to make their shots difficult,” Lawson said.
And that’s what the Sisterhood did in Tallahassee, Fla., as Florida State — the highest scoring team in the nation — was held to its lowest scoring output of the entire season.
It didn’t matter that the Blue Devil offense never really got into a rhythm until the fourth quarter, or that Duke shot 20% from beyond the arc. Lawson’s defense refused to let the Seminoles pull ahead. The Blue Devils outrebounded their Sunshine State foes 51-35, ensuring that head coach Brooke Wyckoff’s team would never build a margin larger than four points.
Once the fourth quarter commenced, freshman forward Toby Fournier took hold of the lead and never looked back, putting up double-digit points in the final frame to cap off her career-high 28-point night and earn Duke the 71-57 win. Supporting Fournier’s big night was graduate guard Vanessa de Jesus, who led the team in assists through 15 minutes of play.
“In the second half, we went to [de Jesus] and started to play through her a little bit in the ball screen game, and she's terrific at that,” Lawson said. “She's going to make plays that help you win.”
The Blue Devils’ offense certainly added fuel to a flame that eventually turned into a ranked win, but Duke’s 71-point result sits just under the 71.5 points per game which Florida State opponents average. The performance was by no means an offensive beatdown, and it was the defense which made Fournier’s scoring effective in the first place.
“Duke [has] been really great for me, and I feel like, defensively, I've improved a lot. There's so many different schemes that we've been running,” Fournier said.
The team’s defensive growth was on full display in the Tucker Center; the victory served as a lecture in textbook Lawson basketball.
Florida State only suffered 10 turnovers, well under the nearly 21 turnovers that Duke’s opponents average, but the Blue Devil defense still proved effective. Simply put, the Seminoles weren’t able to get the usual quality looks that charge their 88.2 points per game. Contested 3-pointers and a clogged lane didn’t mix well with the Florida State offensive plans, and the Seminole squad could never reach its full potential on the offensive end.
“It wasn't like you're going to shut [Latson] down, you're not going to keep her from scoring. She's too talented,” Lawson said. “I thought for the most part through the night, we did a good job on their whole team [on defense].”
The road win also held significance towards ACC Tournament seeding. With North Carolina’s three-point loss to Virginia earlier in the day, Duke and Florida State were playing for a 14-4 record to clinch the No. 3 seed in the ACC Tournament. Even with the loss, the Seminoles overtook Louisville and North Carolina in tie breaking procedures to earn the No. 4-seed, but the crucial victory awarded the Blue Devils a double-bye in the conference tournament.
Duke certainly ended the regular season with a reminder of what the team does best: eliminating scoring opportunities. Against strong programs, Lawson’s team needs to execute on the defensive end and find its own reliable source of scoring throughout the match. That’s what happened with an all-around impressive defensive performance and Fournier’s career high against Florida State, and it’s a form that Duke will hope to continue into the postseason.
The Blue Devils next play in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals Friday at 7:30 p.m. against Clemson, Stanford or Louisville.
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