The second-seeded Blue Devils opened the ACC tournament with a 82-52 win against seventh seed Georgia Tech
The Blue Devils seem to be adapting to life on the court without three of their top guards at just the right time—in the postseason.
“[We] are very confident and have a lot of great talent,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “Everybody understands that they are going to play their role. That we all have to be present minded. The leadership, whether it is seniors or younger—everybody is playing their part.”
After a competitive first 15 minutes of the first half featured six ties and six lead changes, the Blue Devils gave themselves some breathing room after guard Tricia Liston scored five straight points to make the score 29-24.
Elizabeth Williams then shocked fans in Coliseum when she dribbled down the court and finished with a left-handed lay-up. Duke (26-5, 12-4 in the ACC) finished the half on a 11-2 run after guard Ka’lia Johnson drilled a 3-pointer with one second to play. Johnson finished the game with two triples, just three shy of her career total of five. She finished with seven points and six rebounds.
Johnson has seen extended playing time at the point guard position due to injuries to guards Alexis Jones, Chelsea Gray and Chloe Wells.
“It is always fun to be on the court,” Johnson said. “I’m always ready to play. Every time I get that opportunity I just want to make a difference and do what I can for my team. I played a little bit of point guard in high school. It is like these are my old days.”
Even after the Yellow Jackets jumped out to a 13-8 lead early in the first half, solid defense from Duke cooled the sharpshooting Georgia Tech team, which was without the services of guard Sydney Wallace, who has started 27 games this season. Guards Tyaunna Marshall and Kaela Davis scored 17 and 16 points each, but could not overcome a poor shooting night in which Georgia Tech only made 24 percent of its field goals.
“We were not able to make shots,” Georgia Tech head coach MaChelle Joseph said. “When we can’t make shots we can’t set our defense. We get our momentum from scoring, setting our defense, build on momentum from that. And when you don’t hit shots, then it’s dif?cult for us to maintain our intensity level on the defensive end.”
The Blue Devils took advantage of the late first-half momentum swing and came out attacking on the offensive end, with back-to-back baskets from bigs Williams and forward Haley Peters. Even after Georgia Tech (20-11, 9-7) called timeout to stifle the run, Duke responded with a 15-7 run that extended its lead to 54-35.
But it was the defensive play of Williams, who had five of the team’s ACC Tournament-record 13 blocks, helped front Georgia Tech’s twin towers, six foot five post-players Shayla Bivins and Nariah Taylor on the defensive end. Both players only saw limited playing time in the second half because of foul trouble.
“Everybody was moving together [on defense],” McCallie said. “So when someone passed off everybody communicated. The ball pressure was there. That is really important at this time of year.”
Duke would maintain its lead in the waning minutes of the game thanks to a 55-percent shooting performance in the second half and a 14-of-17 outing at the charity stripe. Four of the five Blue Devil starters finished the night scoring in double digits.
“Our momentum going into halftime was great,” Johnson said. “We just built off of that. We played great defense, great offense and made them call a timeout early. From there we just attacked really well, moved the ball well. We did not force any shots. It started at that point and just moved on during the rest of the game.”
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