Aspiring basketball players learn one golden rule when they are taught how to break a zone defense: Don't dribble through a zone.
Somehow, that age-old lesson eluded Georgia Tech Sunday.
From the tip, the Yellow Jackets' gameplan was made all too obvious to Duke, as leading scorer Alex Montgomery drove right at Duke guard Abby Waner on consecutive possessions to start the game. Georgia Tech did not take a shot outside of the paint in the first five minutes of the game and needed more than seven minutes to sink its first jump shot.
So the Blue Devils switched to a 3-2 zone in hopes of forcing Georgia Tech to shoot the ball from the outside. The Yellow Jackets, however, continued to run their offense mainly by driving to the hoop. The results were evident: Multiple defenders swarmed every drive, forcing 16 Georgia Tech turnovers in the first half alone, which led to 20 Duke points.
Hence, that golden rule.
"Holding a team to shooting 18 percent in a half usually bodes well for our intensity," Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said.
But McCallie and the Blue Devils put the game out of reach by never allowing the Yellow Jackets to get comfortable with any one defensive set. Besides the 3-2 zone, Duke also mixed in a trapping press and some man-to-man, made possible by Waner's suffocating defense on Montgomery. Georgia Tech, meanwhile, was unable to execute any of its offensive sets consistently, and the game gradually devolved into different Yellow Jackets driving one-on-five to the hoop.
The Yellow Jackets' aggravation was evident. Montgomery and Chelsea Regins each picked up technical fouls, and after a string of turnovers and missed open shots, forward Iasia Hemingway almost received another after she slammed the ball to the court in frustration.
"[We were] just trying to keep people off balance as much as possible," McCallie said. "I thought we got better in our defenses this game, which was really good."
The obviously off-balance Montgomery was limited to 12 points on 4-of-10 shooting, and the team finished shooting just better than 25 percent. That mark included 2-of-11 shooting from beyond the arc, despite normally shooting more than 30 percent from that range.
"[Duke] played a lot of matchup zone, which we struggled to score against, obviously," Georgia Tech head coach MaChelle Joseph said. "Duke did a great job taking us out of what we like to do."
One possible reason for the Yellow Jackets' lack of offensive cohesion might be their youth. Georgia Tech started two sophomores and a freshman, and had 10 players making their first visit to Cameron Indoor Stadium.
"It's pretty tough when you're on the road at Duke and our 10 freshmen and sophomores have never played here before and don't understand this environment," Joseph said.
Regardless, the relative ease with which the Blue Devils dispatched the Yellow Jackets was all the more impressive given Georgia Tech's victory over No. 2 North Carolina Thursday, in which they came back from 15 points down in the second half.
Clearly, this was not the same team on offense Sunday.
But perhaps that was because of Duke's stifling defensive sets, which should send a message to the rest of the ACC: Follow the golden rule, or don't expect to go home happy.
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