On senior night at Cameron Indoor Stadium it was a freshman and a sophomore that powered Duke past the Hurricanes. Elizabeth Williams scored a game-high 19 points, and Chelsea Gray added 12 points and nine assists, as the Blue Devils earned a share of the ACC regular season title with a 74-64 win Friday night.
With the win, Duke clinched the No. 1 overall seed in next weekend's ACC tournament. The No. 7 Blue Devils (23-4, 14-1 in the ACC) led by 14 points with just under 6 minutes remaining in the second half, but a furious Hurricane rally narrowed the lead to just three points with 1:30 remaining. No. 5 Miami (24-4, 13-2) used a suffocating full-court press to force two uncharacteristic turnovers from Gray and scored 11 unanswered points as the Blue Devils often struggled to cross half court.
“Teams are going to make runs, and games are never over,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “The key though is stopping it... and that leadership came from Chelsea and Elizabeth.”
With just over a minute remaining, Gray saw an opening in the middle and drove through the lane for a layup, giving Duke a five-point lead.
“We had called ‘single-double’, which was basically a clear-out,” said Gray. “Tricia [Liston] came off the screens, and I saw they were going with her so I just went off her tail and it was open in the middle.”
Gray helped spark the Blue Devils on an early 22-5 run, highlighted by a nifty no-look pass to Williams for an easy layup. Duke shot 54 percent from the field overall in the first half.
“We were constantly mismatched, where we had a guard guarding our bigs or vice-versa,” McCallie said. “Instead of calling an offense, Chelsea just saw the mismatch and fed the ball there.”
Williams benefited from the mismatches early on, as either the Hurricane post players struggled to match her size and quickness. In addition to scoring 13 points in the first half, Williams also asserted herself on the defensive end with three steals and a blocked shot, as Duke went into the break with a 38-28 lead.
Miami fought back in the second half though, as Shenise Johnson, the ACC’s leading scorer, had 12 of her 18 points. Riquna Williams and Stephanie Yderstrom added 17 and 16, respectively, in the game.
In the end though, it was Duke’s interior presence that proved to be the deciding factor. Duke scored 50 points in the paint, compared to just 16 for Miami. In addition to Williams, Haley Peters and Allison Vernerey each reached double-figure scoring.
“Looking at that stat I thought maybe we should have won by more,” said McCallie. “Relative to the NCAA tournament you absolutely have to get points in the paint, so that’s a great direction for us to go in.”
Duke was already down to essentially a seven-player rotation after the loss of Richa Jackson to injury last week. Now with the ACC and NCAA tournaments looming, McCallie is looking to use the short turn-around period with the game against North Carolina Sunday as preparation for the coming weeks.
“We’ll treat it like an NCAA weekend,” said McCallie. “You always have to take two, celebrate, and move forward. It’s a great test for us.”
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