With their victory Sunday, the Blue Devils held off Maryland and maintained their spot alone atop the ACC standings.
The No. 7 Terrapins (18-2, 5-2 in the ACC) came to Cameron Indoor Stadium with an opportunity to pull themselves into a share of the ACC lead. But with a physical 80-72 win, No. 5 Duke (16-2, 6-0) was able to create some distance between itself and the rest of the pack.
“That was a great women’s basketball game,” head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “The crowd was incredible. The game was one of the highest quality games I’ve seen since I’ve had the good fortune of coaching at [Cameron Indoor]….Maryland is a great team, but we found ways to make differences in plays and to make key plays at critical times.”
Sophomore guard Chelsea Gray was at the helm of the Blue Devil offensive attack, dishing out 11 assists and scoring a season-high 17 points in some critical spots.
With under three minutes left on the clock and Duke’s lead down to just three points, Gray nailed a clutch 3-pointer to double the margin and make it a two-possession game.
After Maryland responded with a layup with just over one minute left, Gray hit a turnaround jumper in the lane, again extending the lead to six.
“Great players, great point guards, have a way of handling games,” McCallie said. “I’m very, very confident in Chelsea. I’ve never seen this young of a point guard have as much [basketball IQ], not as a sophomore. These are things you see as a junior and a senior. “
With the Terrapins doubling freshman standout Elizabeth Williams—who still managed to record 16 points, eight boards and her 67th and 68th blocks of the season to tie a Duke single-season freshman record—the Blue Devils had to look elsewhere for an interior scoring presence. Haley Peters and Allison Vernerey stepped up.
Peters shot a lights-out 10-12 from the field for a career-high 21 points. Vernerey too was efficient, shooting 5-9 with 10 points despite only being on the court for 15 minutes.
“Especially in their zone they were sagging off at the high post,” Peters said. “I just stepped in and knocked them down today.”
After a fast-paced first half that saw both teams shoot at least 50 percent from the floor, Duke burst out of the break with a 12-2 run. Maryland, however—despite shooting only 36 percent in the second half—would not go away. The Terrapins clawed to within three before Gray put the game out of hand.
“It comes down to defense and it comes down to rebounding to win games and we weren’t very good in either area today,” Maryland head coach Brenda Frese said.
Forward Alyssa Thomas played all 40 minutes for the Terrapins, leading the team with 26 points on a 10-20 performance from the field, including two of three from behind the arc.
It was a well-played game from both sides, McCallie said. The Blue Devils had a season-low nine turnovers—Maryland had ten—and neither team missed a free throw.
A crowd of 7,228 was in attendance for the victory, which was the school’s 300th all-time in ACC play and extended Duke’s home winning streak to a school-record 34 games.
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