Duke’s offense has gone silent with Azurà Stevens sidelined, but its most experienced leader is helping the Blue Devils compete on the defensive end.
Graduate student Amber Henson returned to action Jan. 7 against Wake Forest after a six-week leave of absence from the team, and Duke has held all 11 of its opponents to fewer than 70 points with the forward back on the floor. The Blue Devils travel to Winston-Salem, N.C., to play the Demon Deacons again Sunday at 2 p.m at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, and another strong defensive performance will be critical for Duke to get just its second win in five games.
Henson has stuffed the stat sheet on defense since her return, swatting a team-leading 24 shots during the last 11 games and swiping 12 steals. The Tampa, Fla., native also pulled down a career-high 16 rebounds in a home win against North Carolina Jan. 24.
“That was a big part of my role before I went on that leave and then coming back, I think Coach P really wanted me to be the anchor for the defense,” Henson said. “We’re holding teams under 70, but we have goals of holding teams under 60 and under 55, so [we’re] just kind of raising the standard for defense.”
Henson’s most important contributions on defense do not show up in the box score, though. She can see plays develop from her center position under the basket and talks more than anybody on the floor for the Blue Devils (17-9, 6-6 in the ACC). That communication was missing during her absence, culminating with an 86-50 loss at Syracuse Jan. 3, when the Orange consistently torched Duke with open 3-pointers and easy layups.
There was an immediate change in defensive intensity with Henson back in the lineup after the Syracuse game, and the Blue Devils’ opponents are shooting just 36 percent from the field and averaging 59 points per game since then.
“Oderah [Chidom] told me, ‘It’s so much different when you’re back there, even though you’re just talking sometimes,’” Henson said. “Sometimes it’s not things that really need to be said, but just somebody hearing me say ‘Get out there’ or ‘Go over there,’ it’s like an extra reminder of where they’re supposed to be.”
Defense is only half the game, though, and Henson has had to take on a greater offensive burden with mixed results since Stevens tore her plantar fascia Feb. 1 against Notre Dame. Henson is averaging 8.0 points during the last three contests with Stevens on the bench, but has not yet reached double-figures in scoring this season. The 6-foot-4 center matched her season-high with nine points Feb. 7 at Miami, but shot 3-of-10 from the field in the loss.
Without a reliable scorer down low, the Blue Devils have had to depend heavily on the guard play of redshirt sophomore Rebecca Greenwell and freshman Angela Salvadores to produce most of their offense.
“It’s not like we have to do anything that we haven’t already done. We don’t have to go out there and score 30 points or make some crazy move that we’ve never made,” Henson said. “It’s just make the easy buckets—make layups, make free throws. We don’t have time to miss the chippies, so I think in the past few games, that’s been a big thing. We’re shooting like 50 percent from the free-throw line and missing easy buckets, and that’s putting a lot of pressure on our scorers when the rest of us don’t make easy shots.”
Duke played one of its best all-around games of the season against the Demon Deacons (14-11, 5-7) a month ago in a 95-68 rout, which easily stands as its season-high in points scored this year. Stevens was the leading scorer in that game with 23 points, while Henson went scoreless in 16 minutes but had two blocks and two steals.
If Stevens is unable to suit up Sunday on the road, the game figures to be much closer, and Henson will have to continue her effectiveness on defense against 6-foot-3 forward Elisa Penna, who can stretch the floor and leads the Demon Deacons in 3-point accuracy at 37 percent.
The Blue Devils have not lost to a team below them in the ACC standings yet this year, but if their offense is stagnant again out of the gates against a hot Wake Forest squad, they could drop a third straight game on the road and fall into danger of missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1994.
“I think they jumped out early on us [in the first meeting]. That’s been our problem for the past few games, and then against the top teams, that doesn’t work out. Against Wake Forest, we were able to get back into it and beat them pretty good, but we just have to come out strong,” Henson said. “We can’t come out flat, we can’t come out unfocused and I think that’s going to be our biggest challenge for Wake Forest.”
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