Not so sure. Duke seems like they should win, but if you examine last years game it's not definitive.Duke definitely out-rebounded ND but it was the guards of ND that Duke couldn't control. It was the day after Thanksgiving on the Virgin Islands so who knows where players minds were at. Dev Peters was in foul trouble the whole game and only played 11 minutes with no real stats to her credit. Achonwa and Wright were the only post players who played. It was Diggins, Novosel, and McBride who beat Duke. If it was a back and forth game I'd agree that the teams were equal, but it was ND not showing up in the 1st half while on vacation and then coming out in the 2nd and dominating once they woke up. .
Actually it was more of Duke shooting 5-26 in the second half that resulted in the loss........ including 14 straight misses. 12 missed layups That was a painful game to listen to.
Anyway..... hopefully Duke and ND will meet in the NCAA's this season.
Hope she has enough headbands to try to change up the mojo!The problems ND will have with Uconn this year are too numerous to enumerate. My predictions are:
that they will have more steals than rebounds (not that they'll have many steals).
Diggins has already seen her best year. The ND graduates made life easy for Skylar. This year will be different. She will be the focus of intense coverage, and frustration will be Skylar's lot.
ND shot similar in the first half, so by that rationale Duke was only in the game because of ND's slow start. Ultimately, the teams had nearly the same stats at the end of the game. The final result was ND's guards scored all but 4pts for the game and ND was virtually Peter-less. It was just as painful to watch...except for the last play. Given the experience of watching Duke's much larger team with more/better posts not being able to stop guards who can score I think it's plausible to not put them in the same category as Baylor or UConn.