2024-25 DWBB Season

CameronBornAndBred said:
Duke drops only one, to #9 in the AP poll.
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I would not have guessed that Duke would be ranked ahead of Notre Dame at any point this season, but for one glorious week, it happened. Back to reality, which is still pretty good. Here's the Week 6 AP Poll:

1. UCLA
2. Connecticut
3. South Carolina
4. LSU
5. USC
6. Texas
7. Maryland
8. Notre Dame
9. Duke
10. Oklahoma

14. UNC
22. NC State
25. Georgia Tech

California (essentially #27), Stanford (#28), Louisville (#31), and Florida State (#37) also received votes.
 
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Phredd3 said:
The problem is that we brought the lead back to 11-points right at the end. We were down by 20 at the half. Heck we were down 16 points after just one period. While I'm encouraged by the fact that we didn't give up and brought the lead back to single digits late, after the very first quarter, our win chance never rose above a couple percent. If it's a competitive game that ends in an 11-point loss, that's one thing. But we were never really in that game.

Still, it's much better than a 33-point beat down, and I'll take it over TCU's result any day. Hopefully, we've learned from it, and in a rematch we won't let ourselves fall so far behind early, and we'll still have the gumption and fight down the stretch to make it an exciting contest.
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We actually got it down to 8, had the ball, and almost 6 minutes to play. There's a BIG difference between these 2 games.
 
With the new rankings out, I looked at our conference schedule against ranked teams. With the enlarged conference, uNC is our only home-and-home, obviously. The other 3 are all away games.
 
Phredd3 said:
The problem is that we brought the lead back to 11-points right at the end. We were down by 20 at the half. Heck we were down 16 points after just one period. While I'm encouraged by the fact that we didn't give up and brought the lead back to single digits late, after the very first quarter, our win chance never rose above a couple percent. If it's a competitive game that ends in an 11-point loss, that's one thing. But we were never really in that game.

Still, it's much better than a 33-point beat down, and I'll take it over TCU's result any day. Hopefully, we've learned from it, and in a rematch we won't let ourselves fall so far behind early, and we'll still have the gumption and fight down the stretch to make it an exciting contest.
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I would argue that SC let up for most of the second half and only turned on the juice when it got down to a 10-point lead. If Duke had managed to keep it close from the beginning the outcome might be the same. Of course I do wish that the slow starts would go away. Our men also have this problem.
 
DoubleBlue said:
I would argue that SC let up for most of the second half and only turned on the juice when it got down to a 10-point lead. If Duke had managed to keep it close from the beginning the outcome might be the same. Of course I do wish that the slow starts would go away. Our men also have this problem.
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If SC lets up in the 2nd half (something I seriously doubt Staley allows), why didn't #15 Iowa State or #9 TCU take advantage of it?
 
dudog84 said:
If SC lets up in the 2nd half (something I seriously doubt Staley allows), why didn't #15 Iowa State or #9 TCU take advantage of it?
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Its just the ebb and flow that all games have. Even Staley can't prevent that. Yes, Duke played them better than Iowa State or TCU. I'm just saying there could be two paths that both lead to the same or similar outcomes.
 

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DoubleBlue said:
Its just the ebb and flow that all games have. Even Staley can't prevent that. Yes, Duke played them better than Iowa State or TCU. I'm just saying there could be two paths that both lead to the same or similar outcomes.
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Of course the outcome "might be the same" after a good start instead of a sucky one. There's no proving a counterfactual. But it's hard to argue that it wouldn't have increased our odds of winning, and it for sure would have changed the complexion and feel of the game. We were never really in this one. If we'd started fast instead of slow, it might have been a very different conversation.

Fortunately, Louisville was a different kettle of fish, and we are 1-0 in conference play and #9 in the country heading into Finals Week. That's a pretty good place to be.
 
With the exam break, some thoughts:

Over a third of the way into the regular season, there are some surprises/revelations. Sometimes it's still too early and not conference, but SC is better than anyone in the ACC; UM, KSU, and OU are better than almost everyone in the ACC; and SDSU is better than most of the ACC. Several of the other early opponents would win a few games in the ACC.

I've got blue-colored glasses on, and I did not expect us to reach the top-10 this season. Especially after Arianna and Riley went out.

Who saw Jordan Wood coming? 7.8 points and 4.1 rebounds in 16 MPG. That's not far off Kennedy Brown's numbers in 8 more MPG last year. Shooting 43% from 3. Wow.

Last year we only had 1 double-digit scorer, Reigan at 12.4 (and that was inflated by 2 of her final 3 games being 25 and 28 points). This year we have 3 legit scorers in Reigan, Ashlon, and Toby. Oluchi, Delaney, and Jordan can be expected to hit double figures about half the time, and even Jadyn and Taina can get hot. Good to have the superbly solid Vanessa back. And we actually have more assists than turnovers this year.

Lots to work on, but lots to build on. As Kara said, the defense needs to get better. Free throws need to be better. Gonna be a fun year, love watching the kids grow year-to-year (since we don't get to see it with the other team anymore).
 
Stats v. Virginia Tech

Sorry for the slight delay. This is my busiest time of the year, and I'll try to be better about timeliness moving forward. Here are the numbers from Sunday's game against the Virginia Tech Hokies at Cameron Indoor:


OFFENSE
Possessions: 70.7 (third slowest this season)
oRtg: 1.145 (very good; adj. 1.187,would be #3 in the country)
eFG%: 57.8% (outstanding)
3pt%: 47.1% (great)
2pt%: 53.2% (good)
%three: 26.6% (pretty low, especially given how well we shot them)
FT rate: 17.2% (poor)
OR%: 40.0% (not good for us, decent overall)
TO%: 19.8% (fine)
a/to: 1.286 (very good)
%assisted: 54.5% (not so hot)
fast break pts: 4 (4.9%) (very bad)

DEFENSE
dRtg: 0.834 (very good; 0.725 adj., #2 and a nice bounce back from SC)
deFG%: 44.5% (good)
3pt%: 14.3% (excellent)
2pt%: 47.9% (OK)
%threes: 12.7% (very low, which is generally good)
FT rate: 27.3% (bad)
DR%: 72.7% (OK)
TO%: 25.5% (very good generally, about average for us)
a/to: 0.389 (outstanding)
%assisted: 29.2% (outstanding)
stl%: 14.1% (surprisingly low)
blk%: 14.6% (finally, a good game in this after three real stinkers)
fast break pts: 2 (3.4%) (outstanding)

This is the first game all season where we have been excellent on both sides of the ball. Given our slow shooting start, and how badly Carleigh Wenzel made us look at times, I was a bit surprised at that. But the truth is, our early shooting was an anomaly, and we shot well above average in this one in the end. And even though Wenzel scored 19 points, we made those points very inefficient. She shot 33% from 3, which isn't bad, but we limited her to just three attempts from out there, and she was just 6-14 from two, with EIGHT turnovers. And her usage rate was insane at 45.2% and she played 31 minutes, so making her inefficient really hampered their whole team.

By way of comparison, and switching to offense, the highest usage rate from anyone on the Duke team (who played at least 5 minutes), was from Toby Fournier, at a still-huge 42% (nobody else on the team was above 30%). But she was in the game for only 24 minutes, and she was insanely efficient. Her EFG was a whopping 70.6% for the game, and she scored 1.42 points per scoring attempt. And as ridiculously good as that is, she didn't even lead the team. The efficiency winner was Delaney Thomas, whose usage was "only" 26.7%, but who posted an incredible 75% EFG, and an eye-watering 1.56 PPSA. And Jordan Wood wasn't that far behind. Our trio of bigs was amazing today, and even Janessa Cotton's 3 minutes wasn't bad.

Overall, it was really great to see our team give such a balanced and dominating effort, and although it comes against a team picked in the middle-to-bottom of the pack in the very difficult ACC, it's still a great start to the conference season. We now wait through the finals break to face a warm-up game against Wofford on the 18th, then we travel to the ever-dangerous South Florida three days later. Our next game after USF won't be until 2025, when ACC play starts in earnest.
 
We were able to attend our first women's game on Sunday. This team is so much fun to watch. If you live close to Durham, I hope you can attend at least one game. My personal highlights (not ranked in any particular order):
  • I love watching Jordan Wood play. Last year she played only in the last few minutes of a blow-out win. This year she is a major part of the rotation. Yes she is slight, but she uses her position and feel for the game to have a big impact. And she can shoot.
  • Oluchi! Wow, she is a water bug. In the second have VA Tech was making a run due to the great play of #1 Carleigh Wenzel (she can really shoot). Kara tried several defenders on Carleigh - Oluchi shut her down despite giving up a significant height advantage. Oluchi is just a blast to watch. She NEVER gives up on a ball. If I remember correctly she rebounded her own missed shot and scored at least twice. She also had at least on steal on an inbounds play by VT that led to a score.
  • Toby Fournier is really really good & she is improving. In earlier games she was fouling - Sunday she had that under control.
  • The whole team plays with enthusiasm. Kara definitely gets after them and gets heated. The team responds. To me that means there is a lot of trust in this team. Also it appeared to me that Assoc Coach Tia Jackson is very involved - either with the defense in particular or with the "bench" (the second group who comes into the game).
  • In this game the second group greatly outscored the first group. What a luxury to win a game by ~20 with the team's leading scorers - Jackson and Richardson - combined for 8 points. It's clear, thought, that Richardson is important to the team - even when her shot is not falling she had the most minutes.
  • One last observation: watching this team is fun because of how much they share the ball. According to goduke, they average just over 18 assists per game - their opponents average just over 13. It's just a blast to watch them set screens, pass, get open, run the pick and roll.
  • Of course all is not perfect - still lots of turnovers (14 in this game) and not everyone can shoot.
That's all - except one more call to come to the games. It's easy to park! The games are much less expensive than the men's games! You can go on the floor after the games and meet the team!
 
ramdevil said:
  • Oluchi! Wow, she is a water bug. In the second have VA Tech was making a run due to the great play of #1 Carleigh Wenzel (she can really shoot). Kara tried several defenders on Carleigh - Oluchi shut her down despite giving up a significant height advantage. Oluchi is just a blast to watch. She NEVER gives up on a ball. If I remember correctly she rebounded her own missed shot and scored at least twice. She also had at least on steal on an inbounds play by VT that led to a score.
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I remember watching that sequence and my comment in chat was Oluchi doesn't quit!
 
What's up with NCSU? Preseason #9, they're 6-3 and currently leading 3-6 Davidson by only 1 point at halftime at home. They've lost to some good teams, but still.
 
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