DWBB 2022-23 Season

[CameronBornAndBred]

Headline on the espn video highlights:

Duke outlasts NC State for ACC win; Duke avoids the upset and picks up the double-digit win over NC State.

Ha! I like that.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Nice quote from Wes.

“They came in here and just, in simple terms, kicked our butts,” N.C. State coach Wes Moore said. “They took us out of anything we wanted to do offensively. ... Duke just came in here and took it.”

https://www.wralsportsfan.com/taylor...tate/20648842/

[Kedsy]

We've been saying Duke's defense should keep us in almost every game. Beating the #6 team in an ACC road game kinda proves that point.

OFFENSE

Possessions: 68.8 (a little slow, but a decent pace)
oRtg: 1.05 (barely adequate)
eFG%: 54.8% (excellent)
3pt%: 64.3% (unbelievagable; by far our best 3-point shooting of the season and our 3rd straight 40%+ performance from three)
2pt%: 39.5% (poor)
%threes: 26.9% (just about right)
FT rate: 28.8% (fair)
OR%: 28.6% (meh)
TO%: 24.7% (bad)
a/to: 0.9:1
%assisted: 62.5% (as usual, we shared the ball very well)
fast break pts: 24 (33.3% of points; fabulous)

DEFENSE

dRtg: 0.84 (very good; the crazy thing is that this is our 2nd-worst dRating of the season)
eFG%: 36.9% (amazing)
3pt%: 42.9% (not good, but see %threes for why this didn't matter so much)
2pt%: 33.3% (incredible)
%threes: 11.1% (great; we certainly moved them off the 3-point line)
FT rate: 26.2% (good)
DR%: 61.0% (terrible; this is the only reason State was as close as they were)
TO%: 26.2% (another great forced TO performance; 8th game out of 13 over 25% (with four other games over 21.6%))
a/to: 0.28:1 (astonishing; 2nd straight game below 0.3:1)
%assisted: 23.8% (incredibly low)
stl%: 13.1% (good)
blk%: 11.1% (2pt shots) (good)
fast break pts: 12 (20.7% of points; not good)


Our offense was OK. Too many turnovers but great three-point shooting (especially by Celeste Taylor). Our defense was great, except for our defensive rebounding, which basically allowed State to stay within striking distance.

[burnspbesq]

I think that might have been Day-Wilson’s best overall game to date. Her ten points came within the flow of the offense, which is good, but what really sticks out is seven assists and no turnovers.

In both ACC games so far, Duke has held opponents 22 points under their season average. That’s a foundation you can build on.

[Phredd3]

Let's start with: This was a great win! I love to see us go into an opponent's building when the house is rocking, and see us keep our poise and energy, even after a truly horrible start. We also handled a number of opponent runs with great composure. This is a really even keeled team.

Keeping it real, though, it is worth noting that State's best player did not play this game, and their second-best player was not at 100%. This is a different game - on both ends of the floor - if those two are in. I don't think Celeste gets as many wide-open looks with Diamond Johnson guarding the perimeter. While we celebrate, its important to realize that this game may not have been as awesome as it seemed.

On the other hand, again, we can only play the opponent that shows up, and that was still a really good team in a very partisan building, and we won very convincingly. We can't take any rematch for granted, for sure, but this was a worthy win against a good team. Let's keep it going against Louisville on New Years Day. That will be yet another tough test in the murderer's row that is ACC women's basketball. Lots of opportunities for quality wins are still on the schedule. Gotta make 'em count! LGD!!

[Phredd3]

Next up is Louisville, whose offense is probably worse than ours this year. That game could be really really low scoring and ugly. (But Duke SHOULD win)

Louisville is scoring over 78ppg while Duke is scoring just under 72ppg (including last night, when Louisville scored 83 in their win, while Duke scored 72 in ours). Her Hoop Stats gives Louisville the 17th-ranked offense in the country, while Duke's is 41st. Our defense is better than theirs (7th v. 16th), but make no mistake, Louisville is a tough test, even on our home floor. Louisville had a couple of bad losses this season when Haley Van Lith had just come back from injury, but they also seem to have righted the ship and are currently on a six-game winning streak. I don't think we should be counting any chickens, and I don't think we should expect to be facing an offensive pushover.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Some interesting trivia from yesterday's games.

Three teams ranked in the top 10 of the Associated Press women's basketball poll -- No. 4 Indiana, No. 6 NC State and No. 7 Virginia Tech -- fell to unranked squads Thursday night, tied for the most losses by top-10 teams to unranked opponents in one day since at least 1999-2000.

The string of upsets Thursday increased the number of losses by AP top-10 teams this season to 22, which is tied with 2014-15 for the most before January of any season since at least 1999-2000.

Seven of those losses have been to unranked teams, which is tied with 1999-2000 and 2004-05 for the most ever.

Each of the top-10 teams to lose Thursday was also missing a key starter due to injury: Indiana has been without Grace Berger (knee, out indefinitely) for more than a month, and NC State's Diamond Johnson (ankle) hasn't played since Dec. 11. Virginia Tech expects to be without Ashley Owusu (broken pinkie) until midway through its conference slate.

Of the three programs to secure huge upsets Thursday, Duke is the only one that received votes in the most recent AP poll; Clemson and Michigan State were not even in Charlie Creme's latest Bracketology from Tuesday.

https://www.espn.com/womens-college-...unranked-teams

[CameronBornAndBred]

Duke moves from 11 to 7 in the NET rankings.
https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basket...l-net-rankings

[dudog84]

Duke moves from 11 to 7 in the NET rankings.
https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basket...l-net-rankings

And is the top-ranked ACC team. uNC, which has been ranked all season in the top-15, is #31 in the NET. It's time for the all-knowing pollsters to notice, regardless of what happens Sunday. Louisville might be a tougher game than last night, but I think Kara and Celeste ("This is my team") will keep the team focused.

And while NCState wasn't at full strength, nobody cried for us or took it easy on us when we lost Celeste in the heart of the ACC schedule. Her loss last year kept us out of the NCAAs, and State will not miss the NCAAs this year because Johnson misses some games.

This was the biggest DWBB win in years, and I'd argue in a decade. Maybe since our last Final Four. Because back then we were inarguably a top-5 program, and we had slipped out of the top-20 in stature. Recruiting sure evidenced that, and recruits are sure to notice our resurgence.

DWBB is back!

[JBDuke]

Gonna close this thread and migrate to others for discussions of WBB. For the Duke team, we'll create game-specific threads. I've created a separate thread for discussion of WBB across the ACC and NCAA.

First game thread - Duke v. Louisville - is here: https://forums.dukebasketballreport...Noon-ET-ACCNX)

ACC/National thread is here: https://forums.dukebasketballreport...2022-23-Season