Game 2: Marist

This was a much closer game than expected, with Duke again having a poor shooting night. Marist runs a type of Princeton offense which tends to slow games down, resulting in a much slower pace of 68.5 possessions in the game. (This strategy did backfire a few times, as the Crazies' countdowns convinced Marist to take desperation shots thinking the buzzer was about to sound.)

Individually Carrem Gay had another good night, notching her first ever double-double with 14 and 10. And Bales bounced back with 12 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 blocks. She was hampered by foul trouble though, and only played 19 minutes.

On offense Duke only shot 42% from the field, 27% from three, and a horrible 57% from the line. They did manage a little better on assisted baskets, with 60% of their baskets assisted, but they still took a lot of difficult shots early in the shot clock without setting up their offense.

Defensively they held Marist to 28% shooting, but only blocked 12% of their shot attempts and only managed 10 steals overall. Duke outrebounded Marist by 16, and did better on the defensive boards, corralling 78% as opposed to 43% of the O-boards.

Only 5 goals met tonight:

	Goal	Actual
Opp. Shooting %	35%	28%
Individual scorers <15	1	0
FG %	50%	42%
FT%	75%	57%
More FTs	1	5
% of Rebs.	58%	60%
Duke TOs/Poss	20%	20%
Opp. TOs/Poss	25%	22%
Off. Rating	105	103.6
Def. Rating	95	72.9

Game 1, 2006: Northeastern

Game 1: Northeastern, Saturday Nov 11

Despite Alison Bales having a horrible shooting night (1-10), Duke still managed to ride roughshod over Northeastern 102-49. Carrem Gay, Abby Waner, and Bridgette Mitchell picking up the slack all had great nights, with Mitchell getting the nod with 18 points and 13 rebounds, 11 on the offensive end.

On defense they held the Huskies to 27% from the field, they blocked 20% of all NU's shots, and caused 36 turnovers (therefore 40% of NU's possessions ended in a turnover: excellent!). Duke also effectively dictated the pace of the game: 90 possessions is extremely fast. (Last year Duke averaged 76 possessions per 40 minutes, still faster than most women's teams.)

On offense Duke shot poorly against such an overmatched team, only managing 44% from the floor. Some of that can be attributed to first-game nerves, and also on Al's part to being knocked in the eye early on in the game. I think that shot made her tentative, and then missing bunnies caused her to tighten up. And free throw shooting was bad at 69% as well.

Rebounding was a bright spot, with the two true freshmen and Al all hitting double figures. Cheek and Bales each had 11 to go with Bridgette's 13. Duke pulled down 60% of the O-boards and 77% on the defensive end, and tallied 30 second-chance points.

I have a list of ten things I look for in a Duke game (the concept was stolen from a UConn fan a long while ago). These are ideal goals, but if Duke can manage even half of them they tend to do very well. This game Duke met seven of the ten:

	Goal	Actual
Opp. Shooting %	35%	27%
Individual scorers <15	1	1
FG %	50%	44%
FT%	75%	69%
More FTs	1	14
% of Rebs.	58%	68%
Duke TOs/Poss	20%	21%
Opp. TOs/Poss	25%	40%
Off. Rating	105	113
Def. Rating	95	54.3