The Duke women’s basketball team opened its anticipated 2024-25 season at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Monday afternoon, and [autotag]Kara Lawson[/autotag] and the Blue Devils resoundingly added a tally to the win column with an 89-36 victory over Radford.
After last year’s trip to the Sweet 16 included an upset of the Ohio State Buckeyes, Duke entered this season ranked No. 11 in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. The defense certainly looked ready to make a postseason run against the Highlanders as the Blue Devils held Radford to nine points in the opening quarter and 12 points for the entire second half.
Duke came away with 19 steals as a team with six different Blue Devils finished with at least two, including five from reigning ACC Sixth Player of the Year Oluchi Okananwa. The Highlanders shot 23.3% from the floor and 17.6% from 3-point range.
The defense also registered six blocks, including two from sophomore Jordan Wood.
Wood, a 6-foot-4 forward and a four-star prospect out of high school, put together her best collegiate game to start her second year with the program. After only taking the court 14 times as a freshman, she made four of her six shots from the floor and tacked on five free throws for her first double-digit scoring performance, finishing with a team-leading 13 points. She came down with eight rebounds, more than half of her entire 2023-24 total, and logged two steals in a career-high 23 minutes off the bench.
“I took last year as a learning year,” Wood said after the game. “All last year I was learning from the best coach out there — you can quote me on that.”
Reigan Richardson, a member of the Preseason All-ACC Team after she paced the Blue Devils with 12.4 points per game in 2023-24, started her season with 11 points and two rebounds. Four other Duke players added at least 10 points to the winning effort, including 10 from Okananwa and 12 from forward Delaney Thomas.
“Solid first effort for us,” Lawson said after the game. “I’m sure when we look at the film there will be many things to improve on. I thought we got contributions from a lot of different players…The balance was excellent.”
Duke travels to Virginia for a Thursday night game against Liberty, the first of three road games in the team’s next four contests.