GREENSBORO, N.C.—The Blue Devils had a party in the paint.
Seventh-seeded Duke heads into the ACC Tournament opener to face Georgia Tech, a team it beat two months ago. And while Thursday night's win wasn't as bad as the 84-46 victory Duke claimed in January, the Blue Devils still got back to basics and showcased one of the strongest parts of their offense this season. achieved an impressive victory. .
“We wanted to touch the paint with our passes and dribbling,” head coach Carla Lawson said. “I thought they executed it beautifully.”
The Blue Devils had near-perfect scoring in the paint. The first and last points scored by Lawson's team both came from inside, marking the beginning and end of an overall offensive performance by a team whose offense at times did not match its defensive intensity.
There was no sign of that lack of intensity against Georgia Tech. Duke played aggressively from the start and took advantage of a few key points to lead to the victory. The Blue Devils have been playing their best basketball this season by exploiting opponents' weaknesses in the paint, and Thursday night's win was a perfect demonstration of that ability.
Of Duke's 70 points, 46 came from the bottom. No matter how hard they tried, the Yellow Jackets couldn't find an answer to the Blue Devils' ability to weave through defenders and score easily. Much of that was due to freshman guard Oluchi Onanwa. She came off the bench and led the team with 15 points (eight from inside the paint). Fellow freshman Jaydyn Donovan tied for the lead in rebounds on 5-of-5 field goal scoring and scored 10 points for Duke, but it was Onanwa who gave the Yellow Jackets the go-ahead point.
“She's one of the elite athletes,” Georgia Tech head coach Nell Fortner said of Onanwa. “She's hard to control. She's so fast. When she's on the floor, it changes the energy of her team. She feels that way from an opponent's standpoint.”
The energy Onanwa brings to the Blue Devils is palpable. She tends to come off the bench and substitute into games at the right time and make her presence felt right away. Thursday night was no exception. Just minutes into the game, the Boston native already grabbed two defensive rebounds and stole the ball off a fast break for a Duke layup.
“I feel like when she’s playing there, she’s running at a different speed,” Lawson said of the newly selected No. 6 ACC Player of the Year.
Onanwa's ability to use his speed to evade defenders in the paint and score points proved important for Duke on several occasions, helping the Blue Devils extend their lead against the Yellow Jackets in the second half. .
Refusing to let the freshmen have any fun, senior Kennedy Brown also struggled to the rim multiple times throughout the contest, finishing the night with 14 points, second only to Onanwa.
Try as they might, the Yellow Jackets couldn't stop Duke, especially Brown and graduate student Kamila Mmsbo, from easily evading defenders and getting to the rim time and time again.
“[Duke] They did a good job finding those bigs and they went to work,” Fortner said.
Duke's size certainly helped trouble Georgia Tech in key moments, but Yellow Jackets sophomore Kayla Blackshear also picked up four fouls, three in the third quarter alone, so In the second half, I was more cautious than usual. With their forwards having to avoid fouling out, the Yellow Jackets were more exposed under the net, and the Blue Devils were going to make their opponents pay for leaving the paint vulnerable.
Duke has been on a roll offensively so far, and its paint scoring ability is just another piece of the puzzle that Lawson's team started putting together in the final week of the regular season. That certainly carried over into their first taste of postseason action. Duke will need to keep its teams moving in the paint a little more if it has a chance of defeating familiar opponents in Asia James and North Carolina State in the quarterfinals.
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