For Duke to break out of a midseason slump Sunday, it needs an effective performance from one of its most talented and experienced backcourt players.
The No. 22 Blue Devils dropped to 1-3 in the ACC with a home loss to N.C. State Thursday night, but they will stay home this weekend to take on Boston College Sunday at 2 p.m. at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The contest will provide an opportunity for redshirt sophomore Rebecca Greenwell—Duke’s second-leading scorer—to bounce back from a poor performance against the Wolfpack, when she tallied just six points on 1-of-7 shooting.
“Becca definitely draws some tough assignments defensively,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “Our screeners have to be more effective in sprinting and setting the screen a little bit more aggressively, meaning Oderah [Chidom] and Azurá [Stevens]. We’ve got to be better screeners, and then she’s got to be better at reading the screen.”
Greenwell’s game continued a trend that has emerged in many of the Blue Devils’ losses this year. The Owensboro, Ky., native is averaging 15.8 points per game in Duke’s 12 wins but just 9.2 points per game in six defeats, failing to reach double-figures in four of these six games.
The drop in Greenwell’s production when the Blue Devils (12-6, 1-3 in the ACC) lose extends beyond the scoring column. McCallie has lauded her ability to attack the glass from the perimeter in the past, and Greenwell is third on the team in rebounding, but she is averaging 2.6 more boards per game in wins than losses. With the notable exception of Duke’s first loss of the season Nov. 18 against then-No. 12 Texas A&M—which featured an impressive 22-point outing from Greenwell—when she plays well, the Blue Devils win.
Duke should have the chance to get Greenwell more involved Sunday against the Eagles (12-4, 0-3), but Boston College’s strength is on the perimeter. Junior Kelly Hughes leads the Eagles in scoring at 13.4 points per game and has knocked down 46 treys this season at a 43 percent clip. In last year’s showdown at Boston College, the Eagles made 13 triples to pull off a major upset and earn one of their five ACC wins.
“Last year, they tagged us…[Hughes, senior Nicole Boudreau and junior Emily Daley], those three are all back, they’re excellent shooters and we were not successful in Boston,” McCallie said. “We started the game well and it kind of became one of those games when we didn’t finish—we didn’t contest the shooters enough.”
The Blue Devils’ perimeter defense was impressive throughout the nonconference schedule, holding sharpshooting teams like Minnesota and Idaho to poor shooting nights, but a nosedive in this category is a big reason why Duke finds itself near the bottom of the ACC standings.
Three of Duke’s four ACC opponents have shot at least 38 percent from deep as opposing players like Syracuse’s Maggie Morrison and N.C. State’s Jennifer Mathurin torched the Blue Devils’ backcourt regardless of whether Duke played zone or man-to-man defense.
“We’re playing man-to-man and [Mathurin] gets threes on Azurá and Oderah. What I’m saying is it’s the heart and fire of the defense, whatever it is,” McCallie said. “It’s not the defense… it’s the people and it’s the heart and fire, and we need a lot more of that defensively.”
Greenwell will be a key part of Duke’s defensive scheme against Hughes, especially since she is one of the few options left in the Blue Devils’ rapidly thinning rotation. Freshman guard Haley Gorecki is out with a hip injury, classmate Angela Salvadores and redshirt freshman Lynée Belton are both limited with injured ankles and junior forward Kendall Cooper is not enrolled at Duke this semester.
“I look at it like you’re making spaghetti sauce and you’re missing ingredients and so you’ve got to find a way to make it just right, so we just keep working on it. That’s what coaches do,” McCallie said. “What’s funny is other people don’t understand. The perimeter people don’t understand—like fans or anybody else—they just want results. Coaches—we understand that it’s a process and we also understand what it means when we lose people.”
The constant reshuffling of healthy players has forced McCallie to start 13 different Blue Devils—everybody on the roster—this season, using four different lineups in the team’s four conference games. One of the few constants in the starting lineup all season has been Greenwell, though, and a return to form for her Sunday would help Duke regain momentum as another challenging stretch of its conference schedule looms in February.
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