Every week throughout the basketball season, The Blue Zone will name the highest-performing Blue Devil the Duke basketball Player of the Week.
Tricia Liston
Statline- Sunday vs. North Carolina- 19 points, 6-of-12 shooting, four rebounds, three assists and one steal in 38 minutes.
The good: Liston provided an offensive spark for the Blue Devils in their final regular season matchup in Chapel Hill, scoring a team-high 19 points in Sunday’s 64-60 loss. Liston, who is one of Duke’s best spot-up shooters, also showed her versatility, scoring only nine of her 19 points from beyond the arc. She has proved this season that she can use her 6-foot-1 frame to post-up opposing guards and get the rim.
The bad: Liston had four turnovers compared to just three assists in Sunday’s game. Without guard Alexis Jones, who led the team in assists before her injury against Notre Dame, Liston will have to become better at distributing the ball to post players Elizabeth Williams, Haley Peters and Amber Henson. Liston will need to balance being a facilitator and the team’s leading scorer going into the ACC Tournament contest against Georgia Tech.
The bottom line: Liston, a senior, has been Duke’s leading scorer all season and the postseason is the perfect way to go out with a bang. The spotlight will be fixated on her this weekend to lead Duke through the ACC tournament. In order to do this, she needs to put up big numbers and then find her teammates when defenses begin to collapse on her. If Liston can get hot from the floor in Greensboro this weekend, look for Blue Devil to have an outside shot to make it to Sunday’s championship game.
Honorable mention: Ka’lia Johnson, who has seen extra playing time over the past two games with injuries to Jones and Chelsea Gray, played a career-high 29 minutes and scored a career-high 12 points in the game against North Carolina. She also added four rebounds and turned the ball over just one time. Johnson should continue to ease into her new role and with momentum going into the postseason, could possibly have another breakout game this weekend.
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