All the Blue Devils needed was a trip to one of the world’s most popular vacation spots to forget about their problems of the prior week.
After a loss to then-No. 10 Texas A&M and the announcement that team captain Amber Henson was leaving the team indefinitely last week, No. 15 Duke capped off a three-game tournament with a resounding 85-34 victory against Texas State Saturday afternoon at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya in Cancún, Mexico, in the finale of the Cancún Challenge. Sophomore Azurá Stevens and redshirt sophomore Rebecca Greenwell combined for 26 points and 12 rebounds to lead the charge once again. Both Blue Devils were named to the Mayan All-Tournament team, and Stevens garnered MVP honors for the tournament.
After hanging on to defeat Idaho 74-68 on Thanksgiving and routing Iowa State 86-48 Friday, the Blue Devils turned up the heat on the Bobcats Saturday.
“We never broke outside of what we do and sometimes you can do that when games are lopsided in that fashion where we have such an advantage,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie told GoDuke.com. “I think we played smart basketball. In the tournament overall, it is great for us to have that experience of having three games in a row.”
After a Greenwell 3-pointer early in the opening quarter, Duke (6-1) surged out to a 15-5 lead and never looked back.
The Blue Devils limited Texas State (2-4) to only 11 first-half points, resulting in a commanding 49-11 lead at intermission. Texas State shot only 15.4 percent from the field and turned the ball over 17 times in the opening half, and Duke punished the Bobcats in transition off of missed shots and steals.
The Blue Devils held Texas State’s leading scorer, freshman guard Taeler Deer, in check throughout the game, as she finished with only three points after coming into the contest averaging 14.0 points per game. Deer made only one of her eight total shots and missed all three of her 3-point attempts. Instead, backcourt mate Toshua Leavitt paced the Bobcats’ offense, scoring nine of her team’s 34 points.
Eight different Duke players scored in the first quarter alone, and 11 of the 12 Blue Devils scored—nine players registered at least six points. The balanced offense overwhelmed the Bobcats, because as soon as they tried to stop one Duke player, another Blue Devil would step up and hit a big shot. Duke finished with 21 assists for the second straight game, highlighting its improved ball movement throughout the tournament.
As a microcosm of the entire team effort for the Blue Devils, every member of the top-ranked recruiting class scored, led by Haley Gorecki’s 11 points. After sitting out Duke’s most recent home contest against Army with an ankle injury, the Palatine, Ill., native rediscovered her shooting stroke in Mexico, making all four of her shots against Texas State.
In her third consecutive start, freshman Angela Salvadores just missed out on a double-double, as she registered nine points and eight assists. The Leon, Spain, native picked apart the Bobcat defense, finding open looks for Duke’s frontcourt players, and also added six rebounds.
Stevens was one of many beneficiaries of Salvadores’ passing. The sophomore finished with 19 points and five rebounds, using her 6-foot-6 frame to make herself virtually unguardable in the post. Texas State’s tallest player stands 6-foot-1.
The rookie backcourt tandem of Kyra Lambert and Salvadores combined for 12 assists—five more than Texas State had the entire game—and continued to grow more comfortable playing alongside one another. They also made their collective presence felt in the zone press, forcing many turnovers and helping hold the Bobcats to 5-of-34 shooting from 3-point range.
“We are playing really good defense. It is the thing we practice the most. We know that to be a championship team, we have to play defense,” Salvadores told GoDuke.com. “It is our first thing in practice, in our games, and in our minds.”
After finishing the Cancún Challenge with an undefeated record in round-robin play, the Blue Devils head back to Durham to face Minnesota at Cameron Indoor Stadium Thursday night in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.
“We are capable of playing with the highest teams and beating the highest teams, and we just have to come out and play our game and we will be good,” Stevens told GoDuke.com.
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