The pregame warm-ups were quite the sight. Looking at Duke and UT-Martin practicing, one would not believe these two squads were about to play against one another, let alone in an NCAA Tournament game. The Blue Devils had a tremendous height advantage at every position.
“We knew there was a size difference,” Skyhawks’ head coach Kevin McMillan said. “We weren’t pretending that there wasn’t.”
Realizing this, the game plan should have been simple for head coach Joanne P. McCallie. Take advantage of her team’s tremendous height by passing the ball inside the paint and using a potent post presence to score easy, short-range and low-risk buckets.
Unfortunately, this strategy did not materialize. Not, at least, at first. It took the entire first half for Duke to get its act together before defeating UT-Martin 90-45 Saturday at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
For the first 20 minutes of regulation, the Blue Devils were unable to capitalize on their height. Though Duke was efficient offensively, scoring 41 points off a 10-point performance from senior Jasmine Thomas, the team’s major shortcomings came on the defensive end of the ball. The Blue Devils allowed a pesky UT-Martin squad to force its way under the basket and score against Duke’s much larger, more powerful defenders. At times, the Skyhawks were even able to outhustle the Blue Devils to grab offensive rebounds that granted them lethal second chance opportunities.
By the time the whistle blew at halftime, the underdog UT-Martin team was only down by 10 points, 41-31.
“Halftime was very aggressive. I was furious. The defense we were playing at that time was absolutely horrific,” McCallie said. “I did not like anything in that first half to be honest with you, so I spoke about that.”
McCallie’s “aggressive” halftime tactics must have paid off, because a much different squad took the court to begin the second period. On the Blue Devils’ first possession, sophomore Allison Vernerey found the inside lane for an easy layup. Merely 30 seconds later, senior Krystal Thomas scored a short-distance jumper off an offensive rebound. One minute later, Thomas did it again, matching her entire first-half offensive production in less than two minutes of the second period.
The difference was stunning. Without their ability to score inside the paint, the Skyhawks were forced to take heavily-contested jumpers and commit frustrating turnovers. Their field goal percentage fell from 41.7 percent in the first half to 26.3 percent in the second while committing 15 turnovers, six more than in the opening period.
“I just think that in the second half we came out with the mindset of focusing on defense. Our defense was very lax in the first half and we allowed UT-Martin to execute much more effectively than we wanted to,” Krystal Thomas said. “The second half we made an emphasis to stop the penetration, to contest their shots, as well as limiting them to one shot.”
For these reasons, the Blue Devils were easily able to put the game out of reach for the smaller UT-Martin squad. Duke went on a series of streaks, including a 13-2 run to begin the half, to expand its lead to an insurmountable difference.
With 5:51 remaining in the game, McCallie was confident enough in her team’s assured victory to try something unorthodox—play five freshmen. For the remainder of regulation, the Blue Devils would be represented by five players who had never before experienced an NCAA Tournament game.
One might expect that, with five freshmen on the court, Duke’s 32-point lead would begin to diminish. But that assumption would be wrong. Led by an 11-point performance from Haley Peters, the freshmen demonstrated capability and adeptness well beyond their years, further inflating the Blue Devils’ lead to 45 before the whistle blew.
“I think our freshmen are sophomores now,” McCallie said. “I think that they are much more competitive, and there is no comparison to December and where we were then to where we are now.”
McCallie’s squad will take on Marist in the second round at 7 p.m. in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
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