After 20 minutes of watching Oklahoma State guard Andrea Riley shoot over and carve through Duke's defense for 20 points, Chante Black sent a message that the second half was going to be different.
In the first minute after the break, a confident Riley drove into the teeth of the Blue Devil 3-2 zone only to watch Duke's All-ACC center forcefully reject her layup.
From then on, the Cowgirls heard the message loud and clear.
"We were outsized tonight," Oklahoma State head coach Kurt Budke said. "They were bigger, stronger."
The numbers alone show how imposing the Blue Devil interior was in the season opener. Black had a career-high 28 points to go along with 10 rebounds and four blocks. Senior forward Carrem Gay registered a double-double with 10 points and 11 boards, and junior Joy Cheek chipped in another nine and eight. The Blue Devils outscored the Cowgirls by 26 points in the paint.
The most important effects of Duke's interior dominance, though, can't be measured in a box score. Time after time, the Cowgirls would force Duke to miss a shot, only to watch the Blue Devils crash the boards and grab an offensive rebound, resulting in long, multi-shot possessions.
"I told the girls before the game that the difference in the game was going to be the rebounding," Budke said. "I thought if we could just be even that we could win the ball game."
They were not even close-Duke won the rebounding battle, 57-42.
The Blue Devils' powerful inside game controlled the defensive end of the floor, as well, forcing the Cowgirls to be one-dimensional offensively. Riley went 3-for-16 from the field in the second half, heaving up deep, contested 3-point attempts largely because she had nowhere else to go. Black, Gay and the rest of the Blue Devil frontline shut down Oklahoma State forwards's-Megan Byford and Shyvon Smith, two starters, managed only one point between them in 43 total minutes.
Byford also drew the task of anchoring Oklahoma State's 2-3 zone, which meant trying to stop Black. And on this night, that was simply not going to happen.
"She (Black) scored having four girls hanging on her about three times in a row," senior guard Abby Waner said. "She does everything."
In this contest, she needed to. On a night when starting guards Waner and Jasmine Thomas went a combined 4-of-18 from the field, the Blue Devils leaned on their star. Black held strong under the pressure, scoring six points in a row in a key stretch in the second half that sealed the Duke victory.
"She inspires me to play well," Waner said. "I have never wanted to see a player succeed and score more than Chante, because she can."
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