Duke Takes Down Notre Dame In A Thriller
As Kara Lawson records her first ACC win.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. If at first you don’t succeed . . .
You get the drift. Duke’s women were mauled last Thursday at Virginia Tech. Could Duke move on or was this the start of a downward slide, a sign that Kara Lawson still needed more time?
Either Lawson would get her first ACC win or have her first losing streak.
And the opponent was a revitalized Notre Dame team, 11-2 overall, 2-0 in the ACC, riding a four-game winning streak, ranked 17th nationally.
And the Irish played like a nationally-ranked team Sunday afternoon in Cameron.
But so did Duke. It was a back-and-forth thriller, the best women’s basketball game I’ve seen in Cameron in years. And the Blue Devils were the last team standing, 72-70.
It wasn’t a case of Notre Dame losing the game. It was Duke winning the game.
Lawson made one big change after the 77-55 loss to the Hokies. Senior guard Miela Goodchild got her first start of the season and made it count.
Lawson said she made the decision to start Goodchild on Saturday.
“I think we all have our role,” Goodchild said, a pretty modest assessment of her best game of the season at a time when Duke needed her shooting and composure.
If she wouldn’t pat herself on the back, her head coach took up the slack.
“I thought Miela was terrific today, offensively and defensively. We felt like it would be a good fit. There were a lot of things she brought that we could use in this particular matchup.”
It was a game of mini-runs. Duke led 10-4, Notre Dame led 19-16 after one, then 29-24, then Duke took a 33-31 lead then the Irish closed the half on a 9-4 run to take a 40-37 lead into the locker room.
Each team used a different tool box. Notre Dame center Maya Dodson dominated inside. She missed most of the 2020 season at Stanford with an injury, sat out 2021 and is in a new school and new system.
But she had a dozen points inside at the half, while redshirt freshman point Olivia Miles added 11.
“I’m just so proud of her journey, coming from injuries,” Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said of Dodson. “She’s very high IQ and she works so hard.”
But on the other end of the court Duke knocked down five 3-pointers in the opening half, including two by Lexi Gordon, who got her groove back after several sub-par shooting efforts.
“They were on fire,” Ivey said. “We were at their place and they shot well at home. Some of those looks we definitely didn’t get a chance to get a hand in their face. I needed to mix it up defensively with what we had and I was going to take those threes. Unfortunately, they just were on fire today. So, credit to them.”
And then there was Elizabeth Balogun. Every time Duke needed a play to stay in contact, it seemed like the 6-1 senior made the play.
My favorite came in the second period. Notre Dame was up 29-24, on a 10-3 run, threatening to blow it open. Balogun got the ball inside bit was double-teamed and Dodson blocked the shot.
Balogun didn’t turn to a ref and plead for a call, she didn’t stay back and pout. Instead she stole the outlet pass from Dara Mabrey, turned around and hit a short jumper.
One small data point in a contest in which she was the best player on the floor.
“She has taken it to a different level,” Lawson said. “She’s been more aggressive. We’ve been trying to go to her more and she’s responded. She’s a hard matchup when’s she’s aggressive.”
Duke fell behind 46-37 early in the third period. But Celeste Taylor-scoreless for the first 19 minutes-and Balogun each scored four points in an 8-0 run and then Balogun buried a 3 and Duke was up 48-46, with 4:40 left in the third.
But it was Notre Dame’s time for another run, or more precisely Mabrey’s time. Notre Dame closed the third on a 9-0 run, with Mabrey notching the final seven points.
Duke closed to 59-56 on a Taylor triple but fell behind 62-56, as Dodson scored inside.
Goodchild hit two 3-pointers, the second putting Duke up 66-64.
Ivey described those Goodchild shots as “daggers.”
The final few minutes were fast, furious and frantic.
But Duke had a couple of advantages. Notre Dame was missing key reserve Abby Prohaska, out in concussion protocol. They only played seven players. Ivey wouldn’t use fatigue as an excuse but Duke was deeper and fresher down the stretch.
Of course Duke was missing Amaya Finklea-Guity [COVID protocols] and Nyah Green [injury].
And Duke forced the Irish to burn their final two timeouts in the final thirty seconds. After Balogun put Duke up 72-70 with a fast-break lay-up, Ivey called timeout with 30 seconds left.
But the Irish had trouble in-bounding and she was forced to use her final timeout.
“I had to call time out because I was trying to get a different look in the middle of the floor,” she said.
Still, Ivey says her team got the shot it wanted, three actually, all in the lane, all contested, all misses.
Eventually Balogun grabbed the rebound, with 3.7 seconds left.
Duke called timeout and advanced the ball. A non-shooting fourth foul resulted in another in-bounds, with 3.2 seconds left. Duke wanted to get it to Goodchild but she was tripped and Duke turned it over. But out of timeouts. Notre Dame was unable to get off a shot before the buzzer.
A tiny difference between a W and an L. But the devil is in the details and Duke, as the saying goes, made one more play than did Notre Dame.
Balogun led everyone with 27 points, hitting 11 of 16 from the field and 3 of 5 from beyond the arc.
Balogun now has 63 points in Duke’s last three games.
Goodchild made all five of her shots—three triples—and had only one turnover in 25 minutes. She had 13 points, one more than Taylor and Gordon. Duke made half of its 20 3-pointers, while holding the visitors to 3 of 8.
Dodson led Notre Dame with 26 points and everybody with nine rebounds.
So Lawson is 1-0 against Ivey.
The first of many matchups between the two second-year head coaches? It was hard not to see this as the first part of a long-running series,
“I guess it’s a great story,” Ivey conceded. “I think it’s going to be exciting for women’s basketball.”
But right now Duke needs to move on from its big win the same way it moved on from the VT loss. Grad-student Jade Williams said “we knew we had to go on to the next game and wipe it from the slate. We played really well together, both on offense and defense.”
“I think it’s a sign of their competitiveness and a sign that they believe in themselves more than anything,” Lawson said of her team. “We’re learning and growing through this together. This is nice for me to see as a coach, to have a group that’s going to fight back after losing a game and do what we’re asking them to do.”
So enjoy the win and continue to channel that togetherness and competitiveness because it’s a long season.
- Elizabeth Balogun scores last-minute basket to lift Duke women’s basketball past Notre Dame
- Women’s basketball: Final shots fail as Notre Dame falls to Duke
- Balogun Leads Blue Devils to Thrilling Win Over No. 17 Notre Dame
- BOXSCORE (PDF)
- POSTGAME NOTES (PDF)
- GALLERY
- NOTRE DAME QUOTES (PDF)
- LAWSON QUOTES (PDF)
- GOODCHILD/WILLIAMS QUOTES (PDF)
- LAWSON INTERVIEW
- GOODCHILD/WILLIAMS INTERVIEW