2024-25 DWBB Season

The nerd rankings are just starting to get that message, as we are ranked 8th defensively by Torvik and 7th by Her Hoop Stats, but we've clearly been the top team in January.
You are correct. According to Torvik, in games from January 1 to today, Duke is #1 in defensive efficiency. And by a HUGE margin: Duke's adj DE since January 1 is 0.615, while 2nd place UNC and UConn (tied) are at 0.682.
 
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:

smuredtee.jpg

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.

CategorySMU (10-9, 2-5 ACC)Duke (15-4, 6-1 ACC)
Points Scored66.9 (154th nationally)76.6 (39th)
Points Allowed66.6 (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 Rebounds42.8 (16th)40.5 (49th)
--- Offensive Rebounds15.7 (13th)15.1 (22nd)
--- Defensive Rebounds27.1 (70th)25.4 (155th)
Assists12.6 (217th)17.2 (32nd)
Assist/Turnover Ratio (NCAA.com)0.80 (194th)1.08 (55th)
Steals7.6 (224th)11.5 (30th)
Blocks3.8 (83rd)4.4 (36th)
Turnovers15.79 (143rd fewest)15.84 (146th fewest)
Personal Fouls17.4 (225th fewest)17.1 (201st fewest)
Field Goal Percentage38.0% (290th)45.7% (47th)
2-Point FG Percentage42.2% (294th)49.7% (78th)
3-Point FG Percentage29.0% (261st)34.9% (59th)
Free Throw Percentage71.7% (154th)65.7% (308th)
NET Ranking (NCAA.com)#102 (NET Summary)#8 (NET Summary)
--- Strength of Schedule53rd4th
--- Quad 1 record0-43-3
--- Quad 2 record1-26-1
--- Quad 3 record4-12-0
--- Quad 4 record5-24-0
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
 
  • 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.)
I take the opposite view, SMU will help Kara's Texas recruiting. She can guarantee prospects 2 visits back to their area in 4 years. Before this ridiculous (IMO) conference expansion, coaches had to go out of their way to schedule 1 game in 4 years for distant prospects.

Also, I would say Pitt was their worst loss. Pitt is pretty terrible (they're 35-148 in the ACC), and SMU blew a 32-point lead to them and lost by 13! That is probably the worst loss in WBB history, it set the record for biggest comeback loss in regulation (one other team came back from 32 and won in overtime). That included a 0-28 3rd quarter. Unless you were only talking about their non-conference losses. But that Pitt loss was monumental, and I thought worth a mention.

Minor quibbles to another of your excellent pre-game write-ups.
 
I take the opposite view, SMU will help Kara's Texas recruiting. She can guarantee prospects 2 visits back to their area in 4 years. Before this ridiculous (IMO) conference expansion, coaches had to go out of their way to schedule 1 game in 4 years for distant prospects.

Also, I would say Pitt was their worst loss. Pitt is pretty terrible (they're 35-148 in the ACC), and SMU blew a 32-point lead to them and lost by 13! That is probably the worst loss in WBB history, it set the record for biggest comeback loss in regulation (one other team came back from 32 and won in overtime). That included a 0-28 3rd quarter. Unless you were only talking about their non-conference losses. But that Pitt loss was monumental, and I thought worth a mention.

Minor quibbles to another of your excellent pre-game write-ups.

My earlier statement was, indeed, about SMU's non-conference slate. But I probably should have mentioned Pittsburgh's historic comeback, and I'm glad you did. Their NET Summary (for today; the one in my table above is 2 days old) confirms that the Pitt road loss is slightly worse than the home loss to Old Dominion.

Good counterpoint on recruiting in Texas. I don't follow other ACC teams closely enough, but I imagine that their coaches could emulate Kara Lawson and gain a better foothold in that state, now that SMU is in the league.
 
Duke WBB plays at SMU on Thursday 1/23 at 8pm ET on ACCN (streaming link, listen, live stats)

wbb20250123.jpg
(source)

Duke links: preview, PDF game notes
SMU links: preview, PDF game notes

Krista Blunk (Evansville basketball; bio) and Brooke Weisbrod (Coastal Carolina basketball; bio) have the microphone on the ACC Network.

Also, I would say Pitt was their worst loss. Pitt is pretty terrible (they're 35-148 in the ACC), and SMU blew a 32-point lead to them and lost by 13! That is probably the worst loss in WBB history, it set the record for biggest comeback loss in regulation (one other team came back from 32 and won in overtime). That included a 0-28 3rd quarter...

This comeback needs to be seen to be believed. The video starts with 5:41 left in the 2nd quarter, when the score was SMU 40-10. By halftime it was 49-18. Then Pittsburgh proceeds to outscore SMU 28-0 in the 3rd quarter to cut the Mustangs' lead to 3. Early in the 4th quarter the Panthers take their first lead of the game, 52-51, and then they start to pull away. Final: Pitt 72, SMU 59.


According to the box score, only 290 fans were in attendance at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh, PA. How many more people will later claim they were there?
 
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Let's Go Duke!

-jk
 
Been forever since we've seen a good half from both teams, tonight both are playing well. Thankfully, Duke is playing slightly better and leads 24-21 at the end of the 1st quarter. There's so many points scored it's hard to realize that it's only the 1st quarter and not the whole half.
 
There's so many points scored it's hard to realize that it's only the 1st quarter and not the whole half.

I think SMU (33 points in UNC loss) and Duke (40 points against UNC in regulation) have shaken the Dean Smith Four Corners rust out of their system.

(I'm in Chat if you're interested.)
 
Halftime score of 46-25. SMU had only one field goal the whole quarter, their other 2 points came from free throws.
Great half for Duke. 8-12 from three.
 
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