A last-second bank shot was all that separated Duke from its biggest win of the early season.
Playing against No. 4 Notre Dame (5-1), the No. 7 Blue Devils (4-1) lost a heartbreaker Saturday in the finals of the Junkanoo Jam when Notre Dame senior guard Natalie Novosel—who shot just 6-for-20 on the night—made a jumper from the foul line with less than a second left, giving the Fighting Irish a 56-54 victory in Freeport, Bahamas.
In order to reach the championship, the Blue Devils dismantled an overmatched Gardner-Webb team 97-31 in the semifinals.
“I thought we were very business-like in the Gardner-Webb game,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “We were focused, we attacked for 40 minutes regardless of the score and the strength of the opponent.”
Unlike the matchup with Gardner-Webb (0-6), the finals featured plenty of drama leading up to the improbable final shot. With Duke leading 54-51 with 1:35 to go, preseason All-American Skylar Diggins missed a 3-point attempt. She rebounded her own errant shot, but teammate Kayla McBride missed her subsequent attempt before Diggins missed another chance from beyond the arc. McBride was fouled while rebounding Diggins’ second miss, but made only one of two free throws to pull her team within two points.
Duke guard Chelsea Gray proceeded to miss a shot on the other end, and Diggins came back to tie the game at 54 with the last of her game-high 18 points. Following Diggins’ basket, the Blue Devils’ Shay Selby missed a layup with nine seconds left, setting up the game’s decisive basket.
The tense final minutes were not indicative of the big runs that defined the rest of the game, though. The first half belonged to Duke, as it jumped out to a 15-6 lead while Notre Dame missed 13 of its first 14 shots. The Blue Devils were led by freshman Elizabeth Williams, who played tight defense, rebounded aggressively and scored timely baskets in the first half. She finished the game with 16 points, 13 rebounds and seven blocked shots. At halftime, the Blue Devils had a commanding 36-20 advantage.
“In the first half we executed and had more patience and poise,” McCallie said. “We had the basketball longer, we made them defend us more and we made better choices.”
In the second half, though, after Duke forward Haley Peters made a put-back to stretch the lead to 18, Notre Dame dominated the next 10 minutes. The Blue Devils missed 14 consecutive shots, while Notre Dame went on a 21-3 run to tie the score at 41. Diggins scored six points during the run and led the up-tempo transition attack. In the final 12:56 of the game, however, neither team was able to gain more than a four-point advantage.
“I think where [the game] turned was the transition defense relative to Skylar Diggins,” McCallie said. “We took some quick shots after we were up 18 and we got outside of what we had been doing. Because we took quick shots, that fostered their fast break and we did not defend well.”
Despite the second-half troubles, McCallie thought the tournament was a quality learning experience for her young squad, which features three sophomores and a freshman in the starting lineup, and was encouraged by her team’s play.
“A lot of good lessons were learned as a team,” McCallie said. “Sixty minutes were very businesslike, aggressive minutes. Sixty out of the 80 were outstanding and approaching more of what we want to do as a team.”
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