COLLEGE PARK, Md.—In her first game without teammate Chelsea Gray Friday, freshman guard Alexis Jones found herself on the bench less than two minutes in after picking up two quick fouls.
When the No. 5 Blue Devils visited No. 8 Maryland Sunday, Jones made sure to stick around a bit longer, and she made her presence felt, racking up six first-half assists and helping Duke to take control of the game early.
Jones finished with a career-high nine assists to go along with 15 points and eight rebounds, leading Duke (26-1, 16-0 in the ACC) past Maryland (22-4, 13-2) 75-59 to clinch its fourth-consecutive ACC regular season title at the Comcast Center.
“I’m just really proud of Lex,” Blue Devil head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “She’s been a leader and a competitor for us all year long. She’s been very consistent, but she has different levels to her game, and I think today she went to another level….To have a freshman point guard come into this environment—terrific crowd, it’s great to see—and really do what she did is almost unheard of really.”
With Gray’s season-ending right knee cap dislocation suffered in the team’s 81-70 victory against Wake Forest Feb. 17, Duke lost a point guard who led the ACC in assists, averaging 5.1 per game prior to her injury.
Against Florida State Friday, Gray’s absence showed as the Blue Devil offense shot just 33.9 percent from the field, tying a season low.
“We had an All-American point guard out for the season, which has never happened in the history of the ACC,” McCallie said. “That’s never happened, so you can imagine how teams would feel if they lost their very best player.”
Adding to the Blue Devils’ struggles, Jones got into foul trouble and ended the game with more turnovers than assists.
With less than 48 hours to turnaround before the Maryland game, though, the freshman had Friday night’s performance fresh on her mind.
“They told me that I could not get two fouls in the first half, and I knew I couldn’t get two fouls in the first half, so I kind of played it really soft on defense,” Jones said. “I tried to stay out of foul trouble as much as I can.”
The cautious effort on defense paid off on the other end of the floor as Jones helped to pick apart the Terrapin defense, and Duke found a lot of open looks.
After staying neck-and-neck with Maryland through the first five minutes of the game, the Blue Devils put together a 9-0 run in which four different players scored.
“They did a terrific job sharing the basketball and making some really good plays,” Terrapin head coach Brenda Frese said.
Jones continued dishing out assists, including a no-look feed to junior forward Haley Peters in the second half, adding three more points to her tally. Jones shot just 5-for-19 from the field but connected on 2-of-3 attempts from long range. The Blue Devils finished 6-for-12 on 3-pointers.
And Jones’ decision to play softer defense was compensated by Duke’s team defensive effort. The Terrapins finished with 16 turnovers.
“They had a great gameplan,” Frese said. “We became a jump-shooting team. I thought we took too many shots from the perimeter. I thought we settled.”
Maryland shot 0-for-9 in the first half from 3-point range, and redshirt junior Katie Rutan, who is a 39-percent 3-point shooter in her career, opened the game with six misses.
“She’s a great shooter, and we did a good job on her tonight defensively talking on her,” Peters said. “She got us last game, so we were focused on her.” The Blue Devils also kept junior Alyssa Thomas below her season average in points with 14.
Thomas, who ranks second in scoring in the ACC, entered Sunday coming off a 30-point performance against Boston College Thursday.
“You can’t really stop her completely, so you just try to work very hard at playing good defense around her,” McCallie said. “[Allowing 14 points] was slowing her down. She’s that good of a player.”
Backed by the team’s stingy defensive performance, Duke’s lead never sunk to fewer than eight after the seven-minute mark in the first half.
And the Blue Devils also made a statement, taking home a win against two ranked oppponents on the weekend, proving they’re not done for the season even if Gray is.
“This team has really grown tough and resilient,” McCallie said.
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