Tag: Taina Mair

Can the Duke defense slow down Paige Bueckers?

Duke women’s basketball needs to slow down one of the best players in the sport on Saturday, but the Blue Devils might be suited to the task.

Let’s just get it out of the way: UConn’s Paige Bueckers is one of the best college basketball players of the last decade.

Bueckers was named the Player of the Year as a freshman in 2021, averaging 20.0 points. 5.7 assists, 4.9 rebounds, and 2.3 steals in her first season of collegiate basketball. She led the Huskies to the Final Four that season and the national championship game the next.

This year, after missing a full season due to injury, she’s picked up right where she left off. She’s averaging a career-high in points (21.8), rebounds (5.1), and blocks (1.4), and she’s still dishing out 3.9 assists per game.

She’s racked up two double-doubles through two tournament games, dropping 28 points on Jacksonville State and 32 points against Syracuse. She’s pulled down 10.5 rebounds and dealt 6.5 assists per game in the postseason thus far, and she had seven steals between the two games.

In postseason basketball, the sport’s best players can be absolute buzzsaws. Scheme, depth, balance, it can all be thrown out the window if your team doesn’t have anyone to stop Bueckers.

The Blue Devils might not have that problem.

Duke allowed 58.0 points per game this season, the best mark in the ACC and the seventh-best average of any Power 6 school. The Blue Devils are allowing opponents to shoot 36.9% from the floor and 32.0% from beyond the arc.

Kara Lawson’s squad has a strong track record against dominant guards, too.

Syracuse’s Dyaisha Fair, an All-ACC First Team member who averaged 22.3 points per game (the third-most in the conference) got to play the Blue Devils at home in February. She finished 7/25 from the floor, one of just six conference games in which she finished below 30% for the game, and 1/7 from behind the 3-point line. The Orange only scored 45 points.

Florida State’s Ta’Niya Latson, another 20-point-per-game scorer and another All-ACC First Team guard, scored 15 points on 17 shots against the Blue Devils back in January. Duke won that game by 42 points on the Seminoles’ home court.

Even in Duke’s second-round upset of Ohio State, the Buckeyes’ star guard Jacy Sheldon couldn’t get off the ground. Sheldon averaged 18 points per game entering the contest, the third-best mark in the Big Ten, but she could only manage 13 points against the Blue Devils. Sheldon made five of her 13 attempts and just one of her four 3-pointers, and Ohio State went 1/11 as a team from distance.

A player of Bueckers’ caliber presents her own challenges. The only player Duke has seen on her tier this season is Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, a freshman who leads the conference in both points (22.9) and steals (4.6) while finishing third in assists (5.6). Hidalgo helped the Fighting Irish past Duke with a 23-point game in Cameron last month, but Duke lost that game by eight after losing the third quarter by 12.

The path for a No. 7 seed to make the Elite Eight would always be tough, Bueckers or not. However, if any 7-seed might have a path to slowing down the Huskies dynamic star, it would be the Blue Devils.

Duke women’s basketball draws the No. 7 seed in Portland 3 region

The Blue Devils women’s basketball team drew the Portland 3 region on Sunday night with a first-round battle against Richmond.

The Duke Blue Devils women’s basketball team found out its NCAA Tournament path on Sunday night.

Head coach Kara Lawson will lead her team as the No. 7 seed in the Portland 3 region with a first-round battle against No. 10 Richmond.

The Spiders finished with a 29-5 overall record and a 16-2 record against Atlantic 10 opponents, and they won the conference tournament with a 65-51 triumph over Rhode Island on March 10.

Duke hosted Richmond in this season’s opening game, defeating the Spiders 83-53 at home. Reigan Richardson scored 28 points in the contest, and ACC Sixth Player of the Year Oluchi Okananwa added 22 points in her Blue Devils debut.

USC, led by star JuJu Watkins, landed the top seed in the bracket. If Duke beats Richmond again, the Blue Devils would likely play No. 2 Ohio State in the second round.

Duke women’s basketball gets massive upset over No. 6 NC State at home

The Wolfpack came into Durham as the No. 6 team in the country, but Kara Lawson’s Blue Devils made sure they left with a loss.

Everyone in Durham knew NC State would be one of Duke’s biggest tests of the year.

The Wolfpack came into Sunday’s game as the No. 6 team in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, sporting a 23-4 record. They were the highest-ranked team in the conference coming into the week and a consistent top-five team in the nation over the past five years.

Duke welcomed the challenge, and after four hard-fought quarters, the Blue Devils walked off with a massive 69-58 upset win for in-state bragging rights.

The Blue Devils jumped on the Wolfpack from the opening whistle, scoring 11 of the game’s first 13 points. Duke’s Reigan Richardson seemed content to beat the Wolfpack herself, scoring the game’s first four points in the opening 90 seconds.

A team as good as NC State wouldn’t go away that easily, however, as the Wolfpack fought back within five before the first quarter ended. Their senior center River Baldwin, who ended the game with a 14-point, 10-rebound double-double, scored half of her team’s points in the opening frame.

With the lead just 13-8 as the second quarter began, Blue Devils fans could be forgiven for thinking momentum sided with the seasoned NC State team. Instead, Duke came out hot again, going on a 6-2 run to open the quarter. Sophomore Emma Koabel, who averaged two points in Duke’s last nine games, made two baskets in the opening minutes en route to a three-for-four performance from the floor.

Sophomore Taina Mair started to warm up in the second as well. The former Boston College guard made a jumper in the first two minutes, but a dagger 3-pointer with 2:30 before the half made Duke’s lead double-digits. Another layup later, she led both teams with 10 points at the break.

After the upset seemed vulnerable with the Wolfpack’s closing run in the first, Duke outscored NC State 22-11 in the second quarter to open up a 16-point lead at halftime. Suddenly, what looked to be Duke’s biggest test of the year was starting to become the team’s biggest statement.

Richardson stretched the lead a little further with a jump shot that found the net in the first minute of the second half, and Mair and center Kennedy Brown made 3-pointers within a minute of each other to ballon Duke’s lead to 22 points midway through the quarter.

Brown, who stands 6-foot-6, had only made five 3-pointers for the entire season before the sequence.

The Wolfpack kept trying to force their way back into the game, but Duke never let them gain momentum. NC State’s Aziaha James made two 3-pointers to pull within 13, and Duke answered with three easy baskets to end the run. The Wolfpack made a jump shot, but Richardson buried a triple. Each NC State punch had a Blue Devils counterpunch.

The fourth quarter began with Duke holding firm control of a 15-point lead, and the rocking Cameron Indoor crowd could power the Blue Devils to the finish from there.

The upset looked to teeter for the briefest of moments when Baldwin made a jump shot to pull the Wolfpack within nine with 2:26 to play, but Mair took over once and for all to cement the upset.

She made a layup through contact, drawing the foul and adding the free throw to pull the lead back to 12. After another NC State basket, she drove to the right and laid in a floater off the backboard, screaming and pumping her fists as it found the net.

The Blue Devils coasted from there, and when the final buzzer sounded, the 11-point win was secure. Mair ended the game with 20 points and seven rebounds, and Richardson added 15 points of her own.

The statement win is Duke’s second straight triumph over a ranked team after its Thursday victory over Syracuse, and the Blue Devils move to 18-9 on the season and 10-6 in ACC play. They welcome Virginia to their home court on Thursday next.

Duke’s late comeback effort not enough in home loss to No. 17 Notre Dame

Duke gave the No. 17 Fighting Irish all they could handle at Cameron on Monday night, but Notre Dame pulled away late in the third quarter.

Duke made a valiant effort to upset No. 17 Notre Dame in front of the home fans on Monday night, but the Fighting Irish managed to pull away late in the third quarter.

The Blue Devils donned pink-trimmed uniforms for the team’s annual Pink Game, which honors breast cancer survivors and those still fighting the disease. Head coach Kara Lawson leaned as far into the theme as possible with an all-pink suit and pink-laced sneakers.

Both teams started a little slowly on the offensive end, but a 3-pointer from Taina Mair five minutes into the game gave the Blue Devils the lead. The basket kick-started an 8-0 run, mostly due to the efforts of Reigan Richardson. The Blue Devils’ leading scorer so far this season made two free throws before burying a three of her own, and suddenly, the ranked Irish were down 13-7 on the road in front of an energized Duke crowd.

Richardson continued her impressive form throughout the game, reaching double digits midway through the second quarter. She finished with a team-leading 23 points, her most since the season-opener against Richmond. She shot 8/17 from the floor and 3/10 from beyond the arc.

The Fighting Irish were too talented to remain down for long, however. They clawed their way back to a one-point lead by the end of the opening quarter, but two early baskets from Richardson and Mair opened the door for another Duke run.

Senior center Kennedy Brown came up big over the ensuing few minutes, assisting one basket and scoring another herself. Her presence in the interior kept the Blue Devils alive and ahead for long stretches of the game, and she finished with four points, five rebounds, four assists, two steals, and a staggering five blocks.

“Kennedy has been our best defensive player for two years,” Lawson said after the game. “She is our quarterback on defense.”

Richardson made another massive basket near the end of the half, a jumper in the final minute, to grow Duke’s lead to 30-27 at the break.

The advantage wasn’t meant to last, however. Over a five-minute span in the middle of the third quarter, the Fighting Irish held Duke completely scoreless while adding 14 points themselves. After 25 solid minutes of work toward an upset, the Blue Devils went from leading by three to trailing by 11 within the blink of an eye.

The fourth quarter couldn’t give Duke the spark it wanted. The Blue Devils put up 23 points, the most of any quarter on Monday, but Notre Dame responded with 22 points of its own to ensure the lead never grew smaller than seven. A brief glimmer of hope appeared with two minutes left when Ashlon Jackson nailed a 3-pointer to cut the lead to that exact margin, but Notre Dame scored, forced a turnover, and scored again to deflate the balloon.

The Blue Devils leave a hard two-game stretch between Virginia Tech and the Irish with two hard-fought losses, and the Blue Devils are now 16-9 and 8-6 in conference play. They take the court again against Syracuse on Thursday.

Duke women’s basketball completes remarkable fourth-quarter comeback against UNC

The Blue Devils trailed by 12 points at the start of the fourth quarter and by eight with six minutes to play, but they came back for an overtime win over North Carolina.

Duke women’s basketball got to take on rival North Carolina in front of a sold-out home crowd on Sunday, and despite trailing by 12 points at the start of the fourth quarter, the Blue Devils clawed back to win the game in overtime.

The two seemed evenly matched when the day’s game began. The Tar Heels were 15-8 on the season, while the Blue Devils were 15-7. The first two quarters further highlighted how even the two rivals really were, with UNC taking a 26-25 lead into the halftime break.

The game came unraveled for Duke in the third quarter, however. The Tar Heels opened the second half on a 13-2 run to break the game wide open. UNC guard Deja Kelly, who finished with a game-high 20 points, kept offering dagger after dagger. She made three shots in the first four minutes of the quarter, the final of which gave her an additional free throw after a foul. Add in four points from teammate Alyssa Utsby, and the Tar Heels seemed to find the open field.

When the third quarter came to a close, North Carolina led by 12 points, and Duke’s chances seemed to be on life support. An early few points from Blue Devils forward Reigan Richardson marginally cut into the lead, but the Tar Heels still led by eight points with six minutes to play.

Then the Blue Devils came alive.

Duke rattled off eight unanswered points in the next two minutes to tie the game, spearheaded by a 3-pointer from Oluchi Okananwa. Duke’s Delaney Thomas finished through a foul for an and-one, and the ensuing free throw tied the game at 48 points apiece with four minutes of game time.

UNC responded with another basket, but Blue Devils guard Taina Mair nailed a 3-pointer to hand her team its first lead of the second half.

After trading free throws and no points over the last 90 seconds of regulation, the sold-out home crowd was treated to free basketball, and the home team looked to be playing with house money.

With the game still tied and a little more than two minutes on the clock, the Blue Devils seemed to channel the last burst of energy they needed. They went on a 9-2 run over the next minute-and-a-half, cemented by another massive shot from Mair.

The sophomore fired off a stone-cold 3-pointer from the corner, giving Duke the seven-point lead with less than a minute to play.

Mair finished the game with 13 points, second on the team only to Thomas’s 19-point performance. The Blue Devils outscored UNC by 20 points over the final 15 minutes for the 68-60 win.

The victory moves Duke to 16-7 on the year and 8-4 in ACC play, and the team has now won 11 of its past 14 games.

ACC women’s basketball leaders as of Feb. 5

No Notre Dame players are on the list.

The ACC continues to march forward with its season. It’s getting late for some teams to make a move, and others will be just fine when the time comes to unveil the NCAA Tournament bracket. Here are some players who could help sway the selection committee for their team, especially if they’re on the bubble:

ACC women’s basketball leaders as of Jan. 29

One Notre Dame player shares the lead in one category.

We are prepared to leave January behind and enter February, the final full month of college basketball’s regular season. This is when we’ll really get to see whether the teams that have made noise to this point are legitimate or whether any struggling teams are just lying in the weeds. In the meantime, here are some of the players most making noise, specifically those in the ACC:

ACC women’s basketball leaders as of Jan. 22

One Notre Dame player has made this list.

As we enter the final full week of January, we continue to be impressed by those leading the bunch in the ACC. While we don’t know where their teams will be at the end of February, they should at least factor into their respective teams’ seeding in the ACC Tournament. Here are the statistical leaders at this point in the season:

ACC women’s basketball leaders as of Jan. 15

One Notre Dame player makes this list.

With the ACC having reached the midway point of January, we’re at somewhat of a benchmark for the season. While there is plenty of time for new faces to emerge atop the main statistical leaderboards, it would help if those new faces made their move sooner rather than later. For now though, here’s who stands out:

ACC women’s basketball leaders as of Jan. 8

One Notre Dame player on this list.

With ACC play having entered full swing, we now can take a look at the best in the conference. Some teams have more statistical leaders than others, but most have none at all. When these players’ teams come up on the schedule, opponents really will want to pay attention: