Duke is 8-1 heading into a major challenge with South Carolina. Duke's sole loss against Vanderbilt was also Duke's only game against an RPI top 100 team. Granted, the RPI isn't all that meaningful yet; it's more of a quick indicator. The Devils are currently ranked just #93 with a strength of schedule of #264. It hasn't helped that Penn has struggled a bit out of the gate (a loss to a bad Binghamton team has really hurt them), but only Long Beach State at #123 has resembled a decent win. Vandy is currently ranked #60 in the RPI with new head coach Stephanie White. The grapevine reported last year that she was eager to get into the college coaching ranks after being in the WNBA for a number of years, and if the Duke job had come open, she no doubt would have pounced on it if offered. Interestingly, her former player at Indiana, Joy Cheek, left Ohio State to take an assistant's job at Vandy. It's certainly a better fit for Joy than Ohio State in terms of the student body.
Vandy's tallest player was just 6-1, yet senior forward Marqu'es Webb dominated Duke inside with 13 rebounds. Duke lost for two reasons: 19 turnovers that led to 25 Vandy points and getting outrebounded 43-34, including giving up 18 offensive rebounds to a smaller team. Duke shot 47% and was able to run a bit (24 fast break points), but Vandy clamped down on Duke's shooting and the Devil bigs weren't good enough to make up the difference. Duke seemed ill-prepared to match Vandy's intensity on defense and on the boards, and a team with far inferior talent found a way to win.
This points to Duke's major problem thus far: a lack of post production. Coming into the season, this was a concern with Azura' Stevens moving on to greener pastures, but Duke had four experienced bigs to work with, all of them healthy. Oderah Chidom has been decent with 9 ppg, 7 rpg, 3 bpg and 63% shooting from the floor. However, she's a natural second banana on offense and I doubt that we'll see her scoring improve much; she's giving about as much as she can, given her limitations as a player. Erin Mathias had a solid start but has wound up back on the bench, a worrisome development given her confidence issues. 7 ppg, 5 rpg, 50% shooting from the floor, and 84% shooting from the line have all been solid. However, her outside shot is still spotty and her low-post offense can still be crude. She relies more on movement than one-on-one moves, and when Duke's offense gets stagnant, she is unable to facilitate for herself. Still, she's improved, but is still a role player.
The big disappointments thus far have been Kendall Cooper and Lynee' Belton. To be fair, most opponents have packed the lane with zones to help neutralize Duke's size, but Cooper was supposed to be able to help from the high post. She simply didn't do enough to impact the game against Vandy, and one worries that having a guard-dominant offense featuring players who generally prefer to shoot first and ask questions later is part of the issue. Still, she's looked hesitant and rusty, though there were signs of life in her west coast starts against Pepperdine and her showing against Rutgers. She's currently averaging 6 ppg, 5 rpg and 2 bpg, and those numbers will not get it done against elite opponents if Duke is going to win. Putting her into the starting lineup makes some sense as a sort of put up or shut up move for her, but I worry the general disorganization of Duke's offense on a conceptual level will make it hard for her to thrive. Belton is still coming back from knee problems, and her lack of mobility has been an issue. She's been useless in zones and she has no range on her shot. She's fallen out of the rotation as well. Despite all that, her size and strength make her a potential asset against big opponents.
The guards are performing as expected. Becca Greenwell is still handling the ball way too much; in a better offense, she'd come off screens more for quick shots and score on cuts to the basket. The only time she should have the ball for extended periods is when she's punishing opponents by posting them up--something she's done well against inferior opponents. Lexie Brown is as advertised: a skilled scoring point guard. She can lead the break and find her teammates with some structure, but when things break down she prefers to shoot. Kyra Lambert has a lot of promise as a pure point guard, and I think Duke will see good things happen as her usage rate goes up, but only if she's aggressive and doesn't simply pound the ball on the perimeter. Ducky Odom (how can I call her by anything but her awesome nickname?) is still figuring out how to play, but she's scoring 20 ppg and shooting 54% from the floor (adjusted to forty minutes) despite having few plays called for her. She's leading the team in offensive rebounding, grabbing 3 a game. Crystal Primm and Faith Suggs are afterthoughts in real games at the moment. Primm is still a plus defender, but she averages 4 turnovers a game per 40 minutes.
South Carolina has a very different lineup than last year, as senior leader Tiffany Mitchell and many other veterans have moved on. The team is built around 6-5 A'Ja Wilson and 6-4 Alaina Coates. Duke fans will remember Wilson hitting the winning shot against Duke in Cameron two seasons ago and outdueling Stevens in Columbia last year. She's putting up 17 and 6 this year as USC's leading scorer. Coates is the team's muscle, averaging 15 and 12 and shooting 70% from the floor. The senior sparkplug is Bianca Cuevas-Moore (7 ppg, 2 apg), a glue player who specializes in defense. Frosh Tyasha Harris and Mikiah Herbert Harrigan (now and forever MHH) come off the bench and help a bit. The two most interesting pieces are familiar ones for Duke fans: former Georgia Tech guard Kaela Davis and former UNC guard Allisha Gray. It's funny that Gray played for a season with a talented but sometimes selfish star in Diamond DeShields, and now she's playing with DeShields' prep arch-enemy in Davis. Let's just say when they played on the same team, it was less than pleasant for everyone involved.
Davis is tricky player to evaluate. There is a tendency, and I have certainly been guilty of this, to talk about all of the things she doesn't do. At 6-2, she doesn't rebound enough. She doesn't pass or play defense. She shoots way too much and takes bad shots. She's soft and doesn't attack the basket enough, preferring jump shots. All of that is still sort of true, but she's now a fourth-year junior and is clearly more mature. Not only that, but she has legitimate scorers around her for the first time since her frosh year at Tech--especially in the post. I think she learned her lesson when she shot all she wanted as a soph at GT, but her team was terrible. Davis is averaging 11 shots a game and 5 treys, but she's a remarkable 15-30 from distance. She's actually starting to pass and actually leads the team with 3 dishes a game, and she's averaging 6 boards a game. Essentially, she's the long-range weapon that coach Dawn Staley has always wished for. Obviously Mitchell filled that role for the Gamecocks for four years, but she was an average shooter who was better attacking the basket. Davis is a zone-killer who can create her own shot and has a willing post in Wilson who will relocate the ball to her. In other words, while Davis is still somewhat limited, you can't overlook her pure scoring ability, especially on a team that's otherwise balanced and needs someone to launch shots.
Gray is a perfect teammate for her, given her overall toughness and cleverness but also her willingness to defer. Gray is a player who can disappear at times but who will also make a key pass or grab a big-time steal. Unlike Davis, who is still shaky inside the three point line (around 33%), Gray is a crafty driver who is struggling from long range (24%). If she starts to get her long-range stroke going, USC will be tough to beat.
Defensively, Duke needs to wall off the paint. Cooper and Chidom have the size to defend USC's bigs, but they will have to be careful with regard to fouls. That's why playing some zone variants will be so important. I feel like Duke is ill-suited to play much match-up zone against USC, because Davis will just flash to the corner and drain open jump shots all game long. What would be preferable is a box-and-one on Davis on certain possessions, and a triangle-and-two on Davis and Gray on others. Rebecca Greenwell is certainly big enough to chase around Davis (who's more of a glider than a runner), and if she gets in her face and dares Davis to drive, that will be to Duke's advantage. On the other hand, you want a quick player to stay in front of Gray like Brown or Lambert (they can take turns covering her), daring her to shoot and keeping her out of the lane. Primm can provide a bit of relief for Greenwell in chasing Davis. Any kind of passive defense against those two guards will result in pain for Duke, but they have to understand their strengths and weaknesses at all times.
Defensively, I think Duke could have some success against USC if they play the right. It's on offense that the questions begin. There is no question that USC will play forty minutes of man-to-man defense, a look very few teams have used against Duke this year while playing real minutes. If I'm Coates and Wilson, I would relish a battle with Chidom and Cooper, because neither of the latter is adept at generating their own points. As such, USC will turn up the ball pressure in the halfcourt, jamming Duke's shooters in the halfcourt and forcing them to make decisions with the ball. Davis doesn't have to play great defense against Greenwell; all she needs to do is stay in front of her and keep her hands up. Becca tends to struggle against bigger defenders. Gray and Cuevas-Moore match up well with Lambert and Brown, two smallish guards. Lambert is a big key in this game. If she can use USC's pressure against them and attack the basket successfully, that will open things up for her other teammates. Duke cannot afford to have Lambert disappear for long stretches, as she has been known to do in big games. If she does, then Greenwell and Brown will start taking bad shots, and I'm not sure Duke will have a chance to earn a lot of second shots against USC's bigs.
A potential x-factor for Duke is Belton. In a halfcourt game, she has a chance to post up and use her low center of gravity to get good shots. I don't think she has a counter-move if USC stops her first move, but honestly I see Belton as a player who can clean up on the offensive boards through sheer strength and effort. This might be her last chance to prove herself against an elite opponent and prove her worth to the team. Odom is another x-factor, as she can get her own shots whenever she feels like and could force USC to go small if she's effective as a power wing.
The Devils have a lot of the same bad habits that every team has had under McCallie. They are slow to rotate in help-and-recover; they are sloppy with the ball, in part because the offense is highly predictable; they foul a lot because players don't always understand where they are supposed to be. When they are able to clean that up, they are often hard to stop. Good teams exploit these weaknesses. USC is a good team but not yet a great one, but at their best they can absolutely destroy teams with their scoring balance. They destroyed Louisville inside and outdueled Ohio State and Texas, but they still have some work to do, like developing their bench. That said, they are one of the few teams in the country who have the scoring punch to beat the likes of Notre Dame and UConn. Without an unstoppable big gun like Azura' Stevens, Duke simply doesn't have enough superstar power to beat USC. Their only chance is their puncher's chance with shooters like Brown & Greenwell, the penetration of Lambert and Staley's stubbornness with regard to playing zone. I expect USC to win by about a dozen points.
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