All season-long, Duke has looked for senior Jasmine Thomas to hit the big shots that capped its improbable comebacks.
But last night, it came down to a freshman who played like it was her last game in a Blue Devil uniform. Chelsea Gray scored eight points in the final three minutes—including a 3-pointer—and made two key defensive steals to give the Blue Devils a 71-66 win over Marist and vault the team into the Sweet 16. Her play also prevented Duke from falling in a shocking second-round upset against the 10-seed Red Foxes.
“This is March,” Krystal Thomas said. “It’s survive-and-advance time. We’ll take the fact that we did win.”
Duke trailed nearly the entire game, but thanks to the late rally keyed by Gray, the Blue Devils were able to withstand 25 points from Corielle Yarde to keep their season alive.
With three minutes remaining and the shot clock winding down, Gray launched a three from well behind the line to cut the Red Foxes’ lead to one. Then on the ensuing possession, she stole the ball and was fouled.
The freshman showed great composure at the line, hitting both free throws to give Duke its first lead of the game since the opening minutes of the contest. Thirty seconds later, Gray again poked the ball free, and her layup gave Duke a 65-60 lead.
“The steals got me going,” Gray said. “Coach stressed defense in the locker room, and that’s what I wanted to do, just come out there and play ‘D.’ That gave me momentum, and then I knocked down a three, and that got me excited from there and ready to go.”
Marist, who had won a nation-leading 27 games in a row, refused to let up. Despite losing their best player, Erica Allenspach, to an injury early in the first half, a 3-pointer by Elise Caron cut the lead to two, and after Gray only made one of two from the line, the Red Foxes had a chance to tie. Leanne Ockenden took an open look at a trey with six seconds remaining, but it bounced off the back of the rim, and Duke could breathe a sigh of relief.
“The best 10-seed I’ve ever seen,” head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “Ours was certainly not an ‘A’ game, but theirs was an ‘A’ effort.”
Marist jumped out to an early lead, thanks to the hot hand of Yarde. The junior connected on three 3-pointers early as the Red Foxes raced to a 23-13 lead. For the game, the Red Foxes shot 10-for-27 behind the line, with Yarde, Caron and Ockenden connecting on multiple treys. That accuracy prevented the Blue Devils from cutting the lead to less than five throughout the first half.
With just under six minutes to play in the first half, however, Allenspach, Marist’s leading scorer, crumpled to the floor. The MAAC player of the year suffered a severely sprained ankle and did not return to the game.
With their senior leader being forced to cheer from the sidelines, Marist looked for someone to take her place, and Yarde was more than happy to oblige. She finished with a game-high 25 points and 12 rebounds, and consistently quelled several Duke runs.
“You never want to see a player of that caliber go down like she did,” McCallie said. “I think they played very inspired basketball for her. I thought their team really rose to the occasion and really played fantastic basketball.”
With 16 minutes left in the second half, Marist had its largest lead of 11. During the next timeout, however, with McCallie conferencing alone with the other coaches, Jasmine Thomas vigorously encouraged her team to step it up.
“I could just feel that we were kind of in a situation where nothing was really going right,” said Thomas, who finished with 17 points. “We weren’t getting stops, and we weren’t scoring on offense.”
On the next possession, Thomas sank a three, and baskets by Haley Peters and Karima Christmas closed the gap to two. Yet threes from Ockenden and Kate Oliver kept the Red Foxes ahead until Gray’s late-game heroics.
“I think Chelsea’s tough,” Thomas said. “She’s capable of making big plays; we’ve seen it all year long, and I just think that she is comfortable in any situation. You couldn’t ask for more than that in a freshman.”
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