Duke women’s basketball was in the mud, and its slowly finding its way out.
The Blue Devils got off to their worst start under Kara Lawson this season at 3-6, but the Blue Devils have since turned things around.
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Following its 93-77 loss to LSU on Dec. 4 in the ACC/SEC challenge, the Blue Devils have rattled off six straight wins and are a perfect 4-0 to start ACC play.
The preseason favorites to win the ACC, the Blue Devils are most recently coming off an 82-68 home win vs. No. 18 Notre Dame, marking Duke‘s first win over a ranked opponent this season. All five of Duke’s starters scored in double-figures in the win over the Irish: Taina Marr (23), Toby Fournier (20), Ashlon Jackson (13), Riley Nelson (11) and Delaney Thomas (10). Thomas added a double-double with 12 rebounds while Nelson matched a career-best three 3-pointers made.
“I think just maturing through the ups and downs and staying steady, because we understand what it takes to win,” Marr, whose 23 points were a season-high, said after the win over Notre Dame. “We know that we are very beatable, but we can beat very good teams. So just staying steady, in that sense, going to practice, practicing hard and it turns out in the game that if you practice hard, you win a lot of games.”
Duke scored a season-high 26 points in the first quarter, the most points Notre Dame has allowed in the opening frame this season, while going 64.7% from the field. The first quarter lead was enough to hold off Notre Dame for the rest of the game, as the Blue Devils outrebounded Notre Dame 39-31 and forced 16 turnovers, scoring 17 points off of them.
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“A big time win for us,” Lawson said following the win over the Irish. “They’re obviously a really good team and an experienced team. I think coming in, that was something that we were understanding of – how much experience they have in their roster and how many big games they’ve played in. I’m just really proud of so many of the performances from our team. In particular, our starting five I thought really answered the call, played with the right amount of competitiveness, and just made big plays throughout the game.”
On the season, Fournier leads Duke in points (17.7), rebounds (7.4) and blocks (2.3). Marr leads the team in assists (5.2) and steals (2.1).
Duke is on the West Coast this week, set to face Cal on Jan. 8 at 6 p.m. ET and Stanford on Jan. 11 at 5 p.m. ET.
Anna Snyder covers Duke for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at asnyder@usatodayco.com or follow her @annaesnydr on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Duke women’s basketball earns ranked win over Notre Dame
