WBB: Duke 57, Penn 50

[-jk]

I didn't see it, but the women opened on the road and also with a win!

-jk

[MCFinARL]

I didn't see it, but the women opened on the road and also with a win!

-jk

Winning is good. But I think this game was closer than one might have hoped. the Penn sports website as trumpeting it as "women's basketball almost stuns Duke," and apparently Penn had a lead midway through the fourth quarter.

Best case, this was a good opportunity for this year's team to learn right away what it takes to win on the road.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Winning is good. But I think this game was closer than one might have hoped. the Penn sports website as trumpeting it as "women's basketball almost stuns Duke," and apparently Penn had a lead midway through the fourth quarter.

Best case, this was a good opportunity for this year's team to learn right away what it takes to win on the road.
We listened to the men's post game show driving home, and when it ended 620 switched to the women's broadcast! We were down in the 3rd quarter. Quarters? They've switched to quarters? Anyway, down 44-39, we got ahead by 1 when we lost the broadcast going past Burlington, so thanks for posting that we won! LGD!

[burnspbesq]

It was a performance of the kind we've grown used to. Way too many turnovers (24), some missed layups and putbacks, but also some things to like. Penn is pretty good--it might be the best team in the Ivy League this year--and the Quakers have some size, but we pretty much did away with their inside game (Stipanovich, their primary inside threat, went 3-10 with six rebounds). For three quarters, our defense was really good--and it was especially good during the 14-0 fourth-quarter run that saved the game--but in the third, we stopped finding Penn's primary three-point threat, and she hit five in a row.

Stevens was good. Lambert was good. Chidom made a major contribution off the bench, with seven points and nine rebounds in 18 minutes. Duke was plus-15 on the glass, and held Penn to 30.5 percent shooting (including 8-31 from three).

It's an opening night road win, which is always nice to have, but there is no shortage of work to be done.

[Kedsy]

I attended the game. I love the Palestra, but the place was almost empty. And I'm not crazy about having quarters in a college basketball game.

Duke physically dominated the game, including collecting 42.4% of available offensive rebounds and 75% of defensive rebounds. But Penn played a strong, scrappy game. We couldn't get much going on offense against their zone. They seemed to jam up the paint but also closed quickly enough to prevent too many decent three-point looks. As burnspbesq said, our defense was outstanding. When we had to turn it on at the end, we completely smothered them, especially during that five minute, 14-0 run in which we forced five turnovers and basically never gave them a decent look at the basket. Obviously, the stretch where Whitlatch hit all those three-pointers was the low-point, defensively.

On the offensive side, as I said, we had trouble doing anything productive against Penn's zone. The play of the day was a 27-footer by Azurá with the shot clock winding down and three and a half minutes left in the game, that brought our lead from one point to four and basically ended the game.

The turnovers were a bit odd. By my son's count, we were called for 11 traveling violations, plus a three-second call, a moving screen or two, and at least a couple other offensive fouls, and I think a five-second call (although I'm not sure about that one and we forced one of those against them, too). So most of our TOs were of the dead ball variety, and several of the walking calls seemed borderline at best.

Lyneé didn't dress, but she helped run a pre-game drill and both she and Lexie were vocal in the team huddles. I haven't seen a Duke women's game live in a long time, but I found the way Coach P worked timeouts to be interesting. For the first half of the timeout, the players talked among themselves -- clearly about the game, sometimes passionately -- while the coaches conferred together a few feet away. And then for the second half of the timeout, Coach P addressed her team.

Here are my assessments of the individual players:

VETERANS:

Azurá: Could do whatever she wanted, whenever she asserted herself. But she didn't assert herself enough, possibly because she got into early foul trouble. I'm not sure she realizes just how good she is.

Amber: Collected 8 rebounds in 18 minutes. She handled and passed reasonably well, especially for a center, but was kind of a non-factor on offense.

Becca: Also had 8 rebounds, and played strong, but had a lot of trouble getting clean looks against Penn's zone.

Oderah: Looked strong (7 points and 9 rebs in 18 minutes), but perhaps a bit rusty (whistled for several of those traveling calls as well as the moving screen -- 6 TOs, overall).

Kendall: Was OK on defense but didn't really do too much overall, in 11 minutes.

Erin: Looked WAY improved from last year. She ran the floor well, and she handled, passed, and attacked the basket with confidence in the 9 minutes she was on the court.


ROOKIES:

Angela: Looked tentative, didn't try to much of anything on offense and the one time she did drive, she was whistled for an offensive foul. Clearly can handle, though. Hopefully she'll get up to speed soon.

Crystal: Really good defensive player, long and quick with good positioning. Didn't seem to even try to accomplish much on offense, though.

Kyra: Seems to be steady with the ball, but she wasn't the lightning bug I was hoping to see. She seemed unable to penetrate Penn's zone, and her passes were mostly just around the perimeter. She only had three assists, all on jumpers, and one of them was just a dump off to Azurá, 27 feet from the basket, after Kyra dribbled herself into trouble with the shot clock winding down. The good news was she didn't make many mistakes (only one turnover) and managed to find a handful of open looks for herself.

Haley: I was REALLY impressed with her, even though her shooting was a bit off the mark. She moves really well, has a very confident handle, makes crisp passes, and shows good positioning. Strong on defense as well. It's going to fun watching her for the next four years.


Anyway, I had fun at the game. It was touch-and-go for awhile, but the Duke team asserted itself when it needed to, grabbed the win and held on to it.

[Kedsy]

If anybody's interested, here a few pictures I took:

5701 5702

5703 5704


EDIT: I don't know why they're upside-down. If a mod could fix that, I'd appreciate it.

[BD80]

If anybody's interested, here a few pictures I took:

5701 5702

5703 5704


... they're upside-down. ...

Hope you got a good deal on those tickets ...

[Devil77]

Azurá's long 3 was amazing. The camera man must have thought that she would move in because when she shot, she had barely a leg in view. I've never seen that before.