Duke WBB plays at SMU on Thursday 1/23 at 8pm ET on ACCN (
streaming link,
listen,
live stats)
After wins over California and Stanford, the #14 Blue Devils complete their "Welcome to the ACC" tour by traveling to Dallas to face the SMU Mustangs in a Thursday night game on the ACC Network. This game is being
promoted as a Red Out game, where fans are advised to wear red, and there's a giveaway of this T-shirt:
Maybe that's a stretched out image, but it looks too wide and too short. Reminds me of shopping at Old Navy.
According to GoDuke's
opponent history page, the two teams have played each other only once, on a neutral court. Duke won 75-45 way back in December 2006, at the Caribbean Classic Tournament in Cancún, Mexico. The
recap says that Abby Waner and Carrem Gay each scored 12 points, while Alison Bales had 10 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 blocks.
That was then, this is now. The first ACC game between the Devils and Mustangs will take place in 7,000-seat
Moody Coliseum. There are a fair number of Duke alumni in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and for them (or anyone else willing to see this game in person),
tickets are inexpensive ($11-15 per seat) and very available. Based on their
team schedule, the SMU women have listed the following attendance figures for their home games this season:
11/04 North Carolina A&T: 953
11/09 Old Dominion: 1,094
11/12 Western Michigan: 2,719
11/22 Lamar: 802
11/25 Arkansas-Pine Bluff: 356
11/29 UT Arlington: 927
12/11 Texas Tech: 1,834
01/02 Stanford: 1,446
01/05 California: 1,323
01/16 UNC: 1,195
Looks like the Caitlin Clark Effect has at least spread from Iowa to Western Michigan; I had no idea that Broncos fans traveled so well. (Actually, the explanation is much simpler: SMU's promotion link above says that the Western Michigan game celebrated Education Day, with free admission for students from K-12 schools.)
Toyelle Wilson is in her 4th season as SMU's head coach, and her winning percentage has been just over the .500 line. She has yet to take this school to the NCAA Tournament, but she is very familiar with March Madness, having been a head coach at Prairie View A&M (three automatic bids in three seasons, 2010-2013), a 6-year assistant at Baylor (ending with the 2019 national title), and a 2-year assistant at Michigan (peaking with the 2021 Sweet 16, a first for the Wolverines).
Prior to the Mustangs' debut season in the ACC, Coach Wilson took her team on a trip to Greece and Croatia. I wrote about it
here. Some takeaways:
- For at least this season and the next, SMU will play twice against its non-obvious assigned partner, Pittsburgh, and once against every other ACC team.
- Coach Wilson says that her new conference gives her more recruiting clout, as the only ACC team in Texas, and the league's enlarged footprint gives her program added exposure to the West and East Coasts. (Considering that Kara Lawson has had eight Lone Star recruits in her brief tenure, including Ashlon Jackson and Arianna Roberson on the current Duke squad, this new competition is concerning.)
- SMU is an experienced team, with one freshman, one sophomore, and 11 juniors, seniors, or grad students. One starter and four reserves have returned from last year.
This season's team is 10-9 overall (again, just over .500). Their best non-conference win is against Texas Tech, and the worst loss is to Old Dominion. They are 2-5 in the ACC, with a home win over Stanford and a road win at Syracuse, and have lost three straight: at Pittsburgh, versus UNC, and most recently at Notre Dame (88-64:
recap,
box score,
highlights,
full replay).
I mentioned the experience of SMU's
roster above, but here's the breakdown by player. Chantae Embry, the lone returning starter and second-leading scorer, has missed the last 4 games with a
knee injury. Nicole Rodriguez, a grad transfer from Loyola Marymount, suffered
ACL and MCL tears in her first exhibition game in Croatia, had
surgery a few weeks later, and will miss the 2024-2025 season.
PROBABLE STARTERS
5-7 junior guard
Nya Robertson #3 (19.8 pts, 2.9 reb, 1.7 ast, 1.2 stl)
6-2 senior center
Jessica Peterson #35 (9.8 pts, 12.2 reb, 0.9 ast, 1.3 blk)
5-5 grad guard
Zanai Jones #1 (8.8 pts, 3.1 reb, 4.1 ast, 1.1 stl)
6-1 junior guard
TK Pitts #2 (4.9 pts, 5.0 reb, 1.4 ast, 2.2 stl)
6-0 senior forward
Kaysia Woods #4 (3.2 pts, 2.5 reb, 0.3 ast)
TOP RESERVES
5-8 junior guard
Ella Brow #5 (5.9 pts, 2.2 reb, 2.6 ast)
5-11 sophomore guard
Kylie Marshall #22 (4.2 pts, 1.9 reb, 0.5 ast)
6-2 senior forward
Sandra Magolico #13 (1.8 pts, 2.1 reb, 0.1 ast)
5-10 junior guard
Donavia Hall #24 (1.2 pts, 1.1 reb, 1.0 ast)
BENCH PLAYERS
5-10 freshman guard
Kayanna Cox #12 (1.0 pts, 0.8 reb, 0.2 ast)
6-3 junior center
Brianna McLeod #25 (0.0 pts, 0.0 reb, 0.0 ast)
INJURED/OTHER
6-1 senior forward
Chantae Embry #33 (11.7 pts, 6.9 reb, 1.1 ast, 1.1 stl)
-- knee injury, timetable unknown
5-8 grad guard
Nicole Rodriguez #17 -- recovering from knee surgery, will miss season
Nya Robertson is the ACC's third leading scorer, behind Florida State's Ta'Niya Latson and Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo, who are also the nation's top 2 scorers. Robertson takes a lot of shots: she has attempted more field goals than anyone else in Division I (over 19 per game), and is 6th nationally in 3-point attempts, with about 8 per game. Despite her volume, her conversion rates are not elite: she makes 33.8 percent of her field goals, and while she leads the Mustangs in 3-point percentage, it's still only 30.7 percent. She's much better at the line, ranking 3rd in both free throw makes and attempts, and hitting 79.2 percent. Robertson is also in the conference's top 5 at committing turnovers, averaging 3.5 per game.
Joining her in the backcourt is Zanai Jones; Robertson and Jones average over 34 and 32 minutes, respectively. Jones is the only other SMU player hitting 30 percent from outside, though she attempts and makes one-third as many threes as Robertson.
Jessica Peterson's rebounding is 3rd-best in the country, and she's just 1 offensive rebound short of leading the ACC in offensive, defensive, and total rebounds. (She and FSU's All-ACC senior Makayla Timpson are the league's only two players who are top 5 rebounders at both ends of the court.) Peterson is also a top 10 shotblocker in the conference, and averages nearly 30 minutes per game.
TK Pitts plays about 24 minutes per game, a number that might be limited because of foul trouble. She's also among the nation's leaders in committing them, with 3 or more fouls in 17 of 19 games. She's fouled out 4 times this season.
Chantae Embry was averaging about 27 minutes until her injury; in her place, Kaysia Woods has averaged a little over 26 minutes in four starts.
This high usage of starters suggests less involvement from the bench, and their ranking of 305th in bench scoring seems to bear that out. Take a look at more team stats (mostly from
Sports Reference) in the comparison table provided below.
Bart Torvik is predicting Duke to beat the home team 72-57.
Category | SMU (10-9, 2-5 ACC) | Duke (15-4, 6-1 ACC) |
Points Scored | 66.9 (154th nationally) | 76.6 (39th) |
Points Allowed | 66.6 (238th) | 59.2 (72nd) |
Scoring Margin (NCAA.com) | 0.3 (196th) | 17.4 (35th) |
Bench Points (NCAA.com) | 13.7 (305th) | 32.4 (6th) |
Total Rebounds | 42.8 (16th) | 40.5 (49th) |
--- Offensive Rebounds | 15.7 (13th) | 15.1 (22nd) |
--- Defensive Rebounds | 27.1 (70th) | 25.4 (155th) |
Assists | 12.6 (217th) | 17.2 (32nd) |
Assist/Turnover Ratio (NCAA.com) | 0.80 (194th) | 1.08 (55th) |
Steals | 7.6 (224th) | 11.5 (30th) |
Blocks | 3.8 (83rd) | 4.4 (36th) |
Turnovers | 15.79 (143rd fewest) | 15.84 (146th fewest) |
Personal Fouls | 17.4 (225th fewest) | 17.1 (201st fewest) |
Field Goal Percentage | 38.0% (290th) | 45.7% (47th) |
2-Point FG Percentage | 42.2% (294th) | 49.7% (78th) |
3-Point FG Percentage | 29.0% (261st) | 34.9% (59th) |
Free Throw Percentage | 71.7% (154th) | 65.7% (308th) |
NET Ranking (NCAA.com) | #102 (NET Summary) | #8 (NET Summary) |
--- Strength of Schedule | 53rd | 4th |
--- Quad 1 record | 0-4 | 3-3 |
--- Quad 2 record | 1-2 | 6-1 |
--- Quad 3 record | 4-1 | 2-0 |
--- Quad 4 record | 5-2 | 4-0 |
T-Rank (Bart Torvik) | #80 (T-Page) | #8 (T-Page) |
In October, the NCAA published a
PDF file of frequently asked questions for the NET in women's basketball. Quadrants are defined on page 4:
Quadrant 1: Home 1-25, Neutral 1-35, Away 1-45
Quadrant 2: Home 26-55, Neutral 36-65, Away 46-80
Quadrant 3: Home 56-90, Neutral 66-105, Away 81-130
Quadrant 4: Home 91-362, Neutral 106-362, Away 131-362