We don’t fully understand what happened in Duke’s game against West Virginia since we were in Cameron for the Indiana State game at the time, but it wasn’t great.
Duke led 23-20 at the half but on the final play of the half, Jordan Wood blocked a shot by West Virginia’s Jordan Harrison. Wood then woofed in her face which led to shoving from both players. West Virginia’s bench players joined the fray and then they, along with Harrison, were all ejected.
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West Virginia seems to have taken that as rocket fuel and the five players who were left dominated Duke in the second half, winning 57-49.
It was an amazing win for West Virginia but a terrible loss for Duke and the brunt of it will probably fall on Woods, which is probably not right.
She did a foolish thing and paid an immediate price, and she’ll likely pay more of one with her coach and team. However, her role in the loss ended with her ejection. Her teammates could have probably done better in the second half. West Virginia showed immense character and Duke…well, Duke kind of crumbled.
Kara Lawson summed it up afterwards, saying this: “Clearly, I didn’t have them ready after everything that happened before halftime to come out. They were ready to play and compete, and we were not. The thing I love about basketball— even in moments like this— is you have to earn your wins, and it goes to the best competitors. And they were the better competitors in the second half.”
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Taina Mair led the way with 10 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists. Ashlon Jackson had 9 points, four rebounds six assists 1 block and 1 steal.
Lawson and her staff will sort this all out over the coming days. It was truly unfortunate the way things turned out but hopefully it will be a learning experience. We’ll have some idea if that happened on Sunday, when Duke visits Liberty.
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