Duke WBB plays at Liberty on Thursday 11/7 at 7pm ET on ESPN+ (
streaming link,
listen,
live stats)
Coaches will say things like "We'll play anyone, anywhere", but Kara Lawson actually means it. She's taking the #11 Blue Devils to the 4,000-seat Liberty Arena in Lynchburg, Virginia for a game Thursday night. This is the first of three road games this season against teams outside the power conferences; Duke also plays at South Dakota State on November 17 and at South Florida on December 21.
So who are the Liberty Flames? On a national level, they are currently ranked 120th by
Bart Torvik. They were picked to finish 2nd in the
Conference USA preseason poll, while three of their returners were named to the 10-player All-Conference Preseason Team: 6-6 redshirt senior center Bella Smuda, 6-0 senior guard Emma Hess, and 5-8 sophomore guard Asia Boone. In their season opener, a 77-58 neutral court win against Valparaiso (
recap,
box score), they were joined in the starting lineup by 5-6 senior guard Jordan Hodges and 6-2 sophomore forward Elisabeth Aegisdottir. The Flames attempted 20 threes in the game and made 13 of them, with Hess hitting 6-of-7.
Carey Green is in his 26th season as Liberty's head coach, and he has seen the program grow from the Big South to the Atlantic Sun to Conference USA. Last year his team finished 11-5 in their first season in the league, tied for 2nd place. (The 1st place team, Middle Tennessee State, upset Louisville in the NCAA Tournament first round.) Coach Green and Hess represented the team a couple of weeks ago for the
C-USA Media Day:
When I previewed Duke's season opener against Radford, I pointed out that the Highlanders lacked a core of experienced returners, size, and outside shooting, which can each be dangerous qualities in a mid-major opponent. Liberty has all three. Four of the five Flames who started on Monday against Valpo also started all 34 games last season, while Aegisdottir was a reserve who averaged 22 minutes and played every game as well. The starting frontcourt of Hess-Aegisdottir-Smuda has impressive size -- Smuda alone is a double-double machine -- and the
roster shows six reserves who are each listed at 6-0 or taller. Finally, Hess' strong showing on Monday was no fluke; she's a career 39 percent shooter from beyond the arc. The backcourt of Hodges and Boone also shot about 37 percent from three last season.
Liberty would have been an interesting challenge for Duke if this game were in Cameron, but it's not, which will make a win on Thursday that much harder.
Liberty Arena is a fairly new building, having opened in December 2020, and it's probably a significant home court advantage for the school's basketball and volleyball teams. According to Liberty's
game preview, the women's basketball team is 52-8 in this arena, including 1-0 against the ACC. Virginia Tech went to Lynchburg three years ago, with a team that included junior Elizabeth Kitley and sophomore Georgia Amoore, and lost by 19. (Smuda, Hess, and Hodges were Liberty reserves in that game.)
The path to a Duke victory, in theory, is pretty much what you'd expect: continue to smother the opponent on the defensive end, but limit turnovers and maintain a good shot selection on offense. A couple of stats work in Duke's favor here: according to
Basketball Reference, last season's Liberty squad was about average (164th nationally) at committing turnovers, but were among the worst at forcing them; opponents averaged the 4th fewest turnovers against the Flames. They're pretty good at blocking shots (40th) but are in the bottom 10 for steals (353rd).
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