Chelsea Gray steals the show in her homecoming

BERKELEY, Calif.—It was a weekend to remember for Duke's Chelsea Gray. It was a day to forget for California's Brittany Boyd.

Making a return trip to the Bay Area and playing in front of friends and family, the senior point guard paced the Blue Devils to a 70-58 victory against No. 9 California, posting 22 points and recording five assists to help No. 2 Duke earn its first victory of the season.

"She's the same player as high school," said California guard Afure Jemerigbe, a senior who played alongside Gray at St. Mary's High School. "Fancy, no-look passes, all that stuff... She can do it all."

While some of Gray's running mates in the starting lineup struggled in the early going, the Manteca, Calif., native got off to a quick start for the Blue Devils (1-0). Gray scored the first basket of the game for Duke, and kept her team close to the Golden Bears (1-1) in the early going. Gray's first 3-pointer of the afternoon gave the Blue Devils their first advantage at 10-7, a lead they would not relinquish the rest of the way.

Gray had a hand in six Duke points during a 10-0 run that pushed the lead to 24-12. She knocked down another shot from behind the arc, hit a free throw, dished to senior Haley Peters for a layup and stepped into passing lanes to force turnovers and deflections.

In the second half, Duke spread the floor and let Gray go to work on the smaller defenders trying to contain her, Boyd and freshman guard Mercedes Jefflo. The strategy was only partially by design, but it paid off for the Blue Devils, who stretched their lead to as many as 17 points late in the second half.

"It's always better when the player plays like Chelsea does," Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "She's a pretty high-IQ player so the credit goes there. We try to do some things but she generally takes advantage of the way people are playing her."

Gray seemed to get past her defenders with ease, either finishing at the rim or dishing off to open teammates for good looks. The Blue Devils shot 42.5 percent from the field for the game.

"I first see the defender that's guarding me and then I have to see the help side," Gray said. "My team was doing an amazing job of moving without the ball and creating some confusion down low, so I was able to penetrate the gaps a little bit."

Whenever the Golden Bears made a run, it seemed like Gray or classmate Richa Jackson would answer back for Duke,

"[Gray] has a complete game," California head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. "She shot the three really well tonight, she got to the basket and she can distribute. Her size, her versatility and what she brings, but more that she makes everyone else better."

Gray also had a part in disrupting the play of her counterpart, Boyd, who struggled mightily for most of the contest. California's junior point guard had given the Blue Devils nightmares in the past, but a long, athletic Duke matchup zone kept her and the California offense out of sync.

"Cal likes to go, go, go, go, go," McCallie said. "The matchups that we have, the half-court presses, the full-court presses... [We wanted to] really try to do a good job on their point guard, who can really do a lot of things. [She] had 23 points in the second half of our game last year, so that was definitely something that we remembered and weren't very happy about."

Boyd finished Sunday's game with 13 points on 4-of-12 shooting and six assists, but most of her damage came in the final five minutes of the game, with Duke already comfortably ahead. She scored three consecutive baskets in transition in less than two minutes to cut the Duke lead from 66-49 to 66-55. Fouled on a 3-point attempt with 1:24 to go, Boyd had a chance to cut the deficit to 10, but missed her first two free throws.

"It was a very good defense, I must give them that," Boyd said. "Sometimes it was like we were standing in mud...I did my best to try to push the ball up as fast as possible so they couldn't set up their defense."

The victory put a cap on a good weekend for the Blue Devils, who visited the Gray household for dinner one night during the trip. Two and half hours later, the team left, with something missing.

"They ate all our food," Gray said. "No leftovers."