jimsumner
11-18-2016, 07:41 PM
I’m going to pop in periodically and give my thoughts on the Duke women’s basketball team.
A few provisos. This won’t be as predictable as the Duke football updates, which I try to post after the weekly media availability. And I’m not going to do this after every game.
And I’m only going to discuss what I see on the court.
And they won’t all be this long.
And if there’s no interest, well life is short.
I’ve seen Duke four times, the exhibition win over Charleston and regular-season wins over Longwood, Pennsylvania and Grand Canyon.
Duke also had a road win over Liberty.
Liberty lost 98-38 and Longwood 105-48.
Neither of these teams is very good and basically provided a scrimmage.
But Penn returns all five starters from last season’s 24-5 Ivy-League champions. They fell 68-55. And Grand Canyon was picked third in the WAC this season, which they opened with a 77-44 win over Alcorn State.
Duke mauled them last night, 90-47.
Duke has started the same lineup all five games, senior Oderah Chidom and junior Erin Matthias at the post positions, redshirt junior Rebecca Greenwell at small forward, with sophomore Kyra Lambert and redshirt junior Lexie Brown at the guard spots.
The strength of this team is on the perimeter. Greenwell says she’s healthier than she’s ever been in her Duke career—she missed her first season following knee surgery—and she’s playing like it, 90 points and 31 rebounds in that 4-0 start, quicker and more versatile.
She came to Duke as a shooter; she once made 17 3-pointers in a high school game. But she can now score off the dribble, post up and set up her teammates.
She’s an All-ACC caliber player.
And she may not be the best player on the team. Brown was third-team AP All-America at Maryland two seasons ago. She’s 5-9 and a great athlete; her father Dee once won the NBA slam-dunk contest as a 6-1 guard.
But she’s also very smart and very competitive. She can get to the rim at will, disrupt the other team and knock down open jumpers. And she’s a leader. She had eight steals and 27 points against Longwood, 20 points against Penn, four assists and zero turnovers against Grand Canyon.
She’s an All-America caliber player, as good as anyone Joanne P. McCallie has had at Duke.
Lambert played point guard last season and there were questions as to how well she and Brown would co-exist. But they seem to have all been answered in the affirmative in the early going. The 5-9 Lambert is hunting shots off the ball and has developed a knack for using her quickness to sneak inside for offensive rebounds; she has 10 O-boards in four games.
Sophomores Crystal Primm, Faith Suggs and Haley Gorecki provide perimeter depth. Primm is a plus defender, while Gorecki is expected back next month after a hip injury sidelined her much of last season.
Can Duke’s bigs help out what looks like a potent perimeter rotation?
Mathias is overcoming confidence issues that have held her back, senior Kendall Cooper missed most of last season due to academic issues and Lynee Belton has chronic knee problems.
All three are competent ACC players but Duke will need more to beat the kind of teams they need to beat to get back to elite status.
There are two possibilities. Oderah Chidom is a 6-4 senior, very quick, very athletic, very thin. She can out-quick most opposing players her size but she can be outmuscled. But at the very least she can rebound, block shots and run the floor.
Leaonna Odom is an athletic 6-2 freshman combo forward, a McDonald’s All-American and an aggressive rim attacker. Duke will play her some at the 4, with Chidom at the 5 in a running lineup.
Odom has a chance to be really good.
Duke was picked sixth in the ACC, a long way from the Chelsea Gray/Tricia Liston-led teams that started out ranked second nationally only three seasons ago. But the ACC is loaded this season and a top -six finish gets Duke back in the NCAAs.
Duke has overwhelmed its first four opponents with athleticism, size and depth. Duke has forced 101 turnovers in those game, with 63 steals and 25 blocks.
Will that work against better opponents? We’ll start finding out this weekend, when Duke travels to Nashville for a Sunday-afternoon meeting with Vanderbilt, a solid but hardly elite SEC team, coming off an 18-14 record.
Duke should win that game. If they don't, we have questions.
South Carolina, Villanova, and Kentucky visit Cameron next month.
Duke is clicking on all cylinders right now. But everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face and Duke hasn’t been hit in the face yet.
Comments and questions welcome. Answers not guaranteed.
A few provisos. This won’t be as predictable as the Duke football updates, which I try to post after the weekly media availability. And I’m not going to do this after every game.
And I’m only going to discuss what I see on the court.
And they won’t all be this long.
And if there’s no interest, well life is short.
I’ve seen Duke four times, the exhibition win over Charleston and regular-season wins over Longwood, Pennsylvania and Grand Canyon.
Duke also had a road win over Liberty.
Liberty lost 98-38 and Longwood 105-48.
Neither of these teams is very good and basically provided a scrimmage.
But Penn returns all five starters from last season’s 24-5 Ivy-League champions. They fell 68-55. And Grand Canyon was picked third in the WAC this season, which they opened with a 77-44 win over Alcorn State.
Duke mauled them last night, 90-47.
Duke has started the same lineup all five games, senior Oderah Chidom and junior Erin Matthias at the post positions, redshirt junior Rebecca Greenwell at small forward, with sophomore Kyra Lambert and redshirt junior Lexie Brown at the guard spots.
The strength of this team is on the perimeter. Greenwell says she’s healthier than she’s ever been in her Duke career—she missed her first season following knee surgery—and she’s playing like it, 90 points and 31 rebounds in that 4-0 start, quicker and more versatile.
She came to Duke as a shooter; she once made 17 3-pointers in a high school game. But she can now score off the dribble, post up and set up her teammates.
She’s an All-ACC caliber player.
And she may not be the best player on the team. Brown was third-team AP All-America at Maryland two seasons ago. She’s 5-9 and a great athlete; her father Dee once won the NBA slam-dunk contest as a 6-1 guard.
But she’s also very smart and very competitive. She can get to the rim at will, disrupt the other team and knock down open jumpers. And she’s a leader. She had eight steals and 27 points against Longwood, 20 points against Penn, four assists and zero turnovers against Grand Canyon.
She’s an All-America caliber player, as good as anyone Joanne P. McCallie has had at Duke.
Lambert played point guard last season and there were questions as to how well she and Brown would co-exist. But they seem to have all been answered in the affirmative in the early going. The 5-9 Lambert is hunting shots off the ball and has developed a knack for using her quickness to sneak inside for offensive rebounds; she has 10 O-boards in four games.
Sophomores Crystal Primm, Faith Suggs and Haley Gorecki provide perimeter depth. Primm is a plus defender, while Gorecki is expected back next month after a hip injury sidelined her much of last season.
Can Duke’s bigs help out what looks like a potent perimeter rotation?
Mathias is overcoming confidence issues that have held her back, senior Kendall Cooper missed most of last season due to academic issues and Lynee Belton has chronic knee problems.
All three are competent ACC players but Duke will need more to beat the kind of teams they need to beat to get back to elite status.
There are two possibilities. Oderah Chidom is a 6-4 senior, very quick, very athletic, very thin. She can out-quick most opposing players her size but she can be outmuscled. But at the very least she can rebound, block shots and run the floor.
Leaonna Odom is an athletic 6-2 freshman combo forward, a McDonald’s All-American and an aggressive rim attacker. Duke will play her some at the 4, with Chidom at the 5 in a running lineup.
Odom has a chance to be really good.
Duke was picked sixth in the ACC, a long way from the Chelsea Gray/Tricia Liston-led teams that started out ranked second nationally only three seasons ago. But the ACC is loaded this season and a top -six finish gets Duke back in the NCAAs.
Duke has overwhelmed its first four opponents with athleticism, size and depth. Duke has forced 101 turnovers in those game, with 63 steals and 25 blocks.
Will that work against better opponents? We’ll start finding out this weekend, when Duke travels to Nashville for a Sunday-afternoon meeting with Vanderbilt, a solid but hardly elite SEC team, coming off an 18-14 record.
Duke should win that game. If they don't, we have questions.
South Carolina, Villanova, and Kentucky visit Cameron next month.
Duke is clicking on all cylinders right now. But everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face and Duke hasn’t been hit in the face yet.
Comments and questions welcome. Answers not guaranteed.