Okay some thoughts.
First, some house-cleaning.
As you may have noticed, I'm covering DWBB for GoDuke.com. and still an article or two for Go Duke: the Magazine, which actually are different entities.
Within those constraints, I'll keep posting my impressions.
Right now, this is very much a work in progress. Losing Kyra Lambert was a big loss. No way to sugarcoat it. She checked a bunch of big boxes, experience, best perimeter defender, best facilitator.
In her absence, I think we'll see a point-guard-by-committee, with Gorecki, Goodchild, Craig, Adams, Odom and Boykin--when she returns--taking turns initiating the offense.
Unfortunately, I fear all of these players may be better playing off the ball.
Boykin? She's practicing but with limits. No contact. Duke is still saying December but I'd be surprised if we see her before the middle of the month.
Duke is very young. Suggs and Roma are the only players who use up their eligibility this season. Roma is not an ACC player. I've always thought Suggs to be the consummate complementary player, an asset to the team if you surround her with good players and don't ask her to do too much. She had a career-high 12 points today against Elon and seems to be more assertive with the ball.
Suggs is very smart and McCallie values her leadership skills.
Leaonna Odom was exceptional today, 21 points, 10 rebounds, three assists. She seemed very comfortable playing the point and is making much better decisions with the ball. When her drives are cut off, she's not driving into a turnover but rather elevating fr mid-range jumpers.
If she plays like this consistently, she's in the All-America mix. She can be that good.
Haley Gorecki, on the other hand, is struggling a bit. She has a high basketball IQ but I think she recognizes this team's issues and is trying too hard to make something happen, forcing plays that just aren't there.
Getting Boykin back will help her big time.
Duke has four true freshmen and three will play a lot this year.
Miela Goodchild missed a couple of weeks to go to India for an international tournament--she's Australian--and she's just getting back into the swing of things. She has very good ball skills but she's going to have to adjust to ACC-level athleticism.
Onome Akinbode-James is an athletic 6-4, a native of Nigeria. She can run the floor, hit the face-up jumper and she had four blocks today, in 24 minutes.
She needs to figure out what she can and cannot do at this level.
Rayah Craig is a 5-10 guard. She's a tough, physical, high-energy player. She's already ahead of Jayda Adams in the rotation.
Their youth showed today, with some early reach-in-fouls and hesitant decision-making. But they're freshmen. They should get better with time and Duke plays three games in three days later this week in Florida. Force-feeding.
Boykin is a redshirt freshmen, so she'll make four freshmen in the rotation, when she returns.
Sophomore Jade Williams might be the most important player on the team. She and Akinbode-James are the only ACC-level posts on the team, IMO, and she can be almost unstoppable when things are going well.
But her inconsistency is maddening. Duke needs to know what to expect from her day-in-and day-out and that hasn't happened yet. Still, she's three games into her sophomore season.
I can see this season going several ways. We'll find out how good a coach McCallie is this season. If Boykin comes back hale and hearty sometime in the next month, the underclassmen improve and Odom and Gorecki show they can play at an All-ACC level with some consistency, then this is a Sweet Sixteen team, maybe better.
But there are a lot of qualifiers there. If Duke can't solve it's point-guard issues, if fouls and turnovers don't improve, if some bigs don't start showing some consistency, then this could be a long season.
Duke doesn't play at home again until December 2. After the tournament in Florida, Duke plays At Wisconsin, the ACC-Big 10 Challenge.
Lots of chances to grow. And lots of growing to do.