Despite being an unfamiliar matchup for both squads, there were familiar aspects of Sunday afternoon’s meeting between No. 2-seed Duke and No. 10-seed Oregon.
The Blue Devils’ veterans remember the last time Duke hosted an NCAA Tournament pod, and they certainly remember being dispatched in just the second round of the competition two years ago. They also came up against a familiar face, as former North Carolina guard Deja Kelly returned to Cameron Indoor Stadium looking to send a long-hated rival packing one last time.
Ultimately, though, it was Kelly who walked out of Cameron Indoor with a loss in her last college basketball game, despite an admirable 20 points. Duke took home a 59-53 victory against the visiting Ducks, led by an explosive 20-point second-half performance by guard Ashlon Jackson.
“Super proud of the group. I mean, it was a gritty game. It's what we expected. Obviously, we got down early and didn't play our best in the first half and offensively struggled,” head coach Kara Lawson said after the game. “I thought to start in that third quarter, Ashlon just really injected us with a ton of energy and confidence and swagger by making plays, and I thought that kind of got us going a little bit.”
One notable piece of pregame news came only upon the realization that star Blue Devil forward Toby Fournier was not out warming up with the team. Shortly after tipoff, it was revealed she was out with an illness.
“She wasn't feeling well, and our doctors didn't clear her,” Lawson said. “We found out right before the game.”
Maybe it was the bad news, maybe it was the high stakes. Either way, the start of the game was not a good one for the hosting squad. Oregon immediately began to take advantage of its size down low, using 6-foot-8 center Phillipina Kyei to attack the post. Kyei drew a lot of attention in the paint, and it gave her cutting teammates plenty of opportunities for easy buckets. Kelly also came out hot, attacking opposing guards and dropping in a pair of impressive midrange buckets.
The Duke offense looked slow to start, struggling with ball security in its halfcourt sets.The Blue Devils scored just two points in the first five minutes, giving up the ball three times. Foul trouble didn’t help either, as Duke already had three before the media timeout.
However, coming out for the second half, it appeared that Jackson, previously scoreless with multiple airballs, had finally gotten right. She came out and immediately buried two threes to put Duke on top, turning to her bench to celebrate. Kelly, on the other hand, came out and missed her first two jump shots. Jackson followed it up with an acrobatic layup under Kyei and then drew an offensive foul on the other end.
“We knew that we just had to continue to compete and up our level a little bit energy-wise and just stay the course,” Jackson said after the game. “That's a great team ... but we knew we had work to do. It really just came from everybody.”
Oregon, unsurprisingly, called a timeout down 31-28. Not much changed, though, as Jackson came out and banged another one. It was an 11-0 individual run for the junior guard.
From that point, the game was on. The Duke defense, seemingly finally comfortable playing without Fournier, turned up the pressure. Oregon had scored just one point — a Kyei free throw — at the halfway mark in the third quarter. Another Jackson three pushed the Duke lead to double digits for the first time. Kelly led the charge back with some more impressive shots, but the Blue Devils had an answer for everything. Forward Delaney Thomas caught the ball down low and finished a layup, drawing the third foul on Kyei for the and-one.
It was a 45-40 game through three quarters, as Kelly continued to drag her squad back into the contest nearly single-handedly.
“[Kelly]’s a terrific player. Certainly, player tendencies are player tendencies. But even if you know the tendencies, she's difficult to stop,” Lawson said. I thought she made it hard for us in the isolation situations and made some tough plays. Our goal was just to make her take tough shots.”
An early Oregon three closed the margin to just two points, while Duke seemed a little slow out the gate. Jackson put in another jumper, closely tailing Kelly’s 18 points with 16 of her own. Through the next few minutes, the distance between the two squads never moved beyond a basket or two. The Blue Devils managed to cling to the lead, but not extend it.
The two teams continued to battle as the clock ran down inside the two-minute mark, and it was Jackson who finally gave Duke a little breathing room. She caught the ball in the corner and hit yet another three, pushing it to a seven-point lead. Two free throws from Kelly brought it back to five, and Oluchi Okananwa missed a wide-open layup on the other end to keep it close.
In the end, the Blue Devils closed out with stifling defense and quick thinking. When Taina Mair managed to lob the ball over the press to a sprinting Jackson, the Ducks were forced to foul. Jackson hit 1-of-2 from the line, extending the lead to six points. Kelly whiffed on a long three, and that marked the end of the road for Oregon.
In the first half, Kyei continued to dominate down low, even as she drew double teams. She relentlessly attacked the glass, grabbing offensive rebounds left and right. Kelly also kept up her efforts from midrange, picking up an and-one early in the second period and grinning at the disgruntled crowd. Reigan Richardson fired back with a three from the corner, and on the next trip down Mair got in on the action, drilling a contested shot from beyond the arc.
As the quarter went on, Duke continued to struggle. The offense resembled that of previous years, unable to create good opportunities and reliant on tough plays to find points. Rebounding was an issue even without Kyei on the floor, a problem for a squad that has generally fared well on the glass this season. A late run gave the Blue Devils some life, with Okananwa driving hard to the rim for a bucket to cut the deficit to five, 28-23, by halftime.
But a big second half from Jackson and the Duke offense held off the Ducks by just enough to finish ahead.
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Duke will now advance to the Sweet 16 in Birmingham, Ala., and will take on the winner of No. 3-seed North Carolina and No. 6-seed West Virginia.
Martin Heintzelman is a Trinity junior and Blue Zone editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.