DURHAM, N.C. — The Mississippi State women’s basketball team will have to wait until next season to try to put together 40 minutes on offense.
While MSU’s defense was consistent for most of the season, the Bulldogs offered flashes of what they could do on offense all year, particularly in the first 25 minutes of a loss to Kentucky in the quarterfinals of the Southeastern Conference.
Vic Schaefer’s hope was that MSU would put both parts of its game together at the right time and that it would be enough to beat Duke on its home floor and propel his team to the Sweet 16 in Spokane, Washington.
Instead, Schaefer will have the next seven-plus months to figure out how to get MSU over the proverbial hump on offense.
Azura Stevens had a game-high 22 points to lead four players in double figures Sunday in No. 4 seed Duke’s 64-56 victory against No. 5 seed MSU in the second round of the NCAA tournament at Cameron Indoor Stadium on the campus of Duke University.
Rebecca Greenwell had 14 of her 17 points in the second half as the Blue Devils (23-10) erased a four-point halftime deficit and a six-point hole early in the second half to advance to play the winner of today’s game between Maryland and Princeton on Saturday in Spokane.
Victoria Vivians paced MSU (27-7) with 15 points, while senior Kendra Grant had 12 points in her final game as a Bulldog. Morgan William added 11 points and four assists.
“I think it’s just us not putting 40 minutes together,” said MSU sophomore guard Dominique Dillingham, who had six points, 10 rebounds, two assists, three blocked shots, and three steals. “The effort and everything is there, it’s just the offense. Sometimes we get in these dry spells where we just can’t score or there are parts where we’re just not very good defensively. I think it’s just us needing to put 40 minutes together, and then we’ll be fine.”
A basket by Martha Alwal (four points, four rebounds, four blocks) helped push MSU’s lead to 37-31 with 15 minutes, 50 seconds remaining. But a variety of things went wrong for the Bulldogs as the Blue Devils responded with a 26-5 run in the 10:27 to turn the momentum.
n Duke switched its defense from a diamond-and-two to a 1-2-2 or 3-2 zone and used its length and size to affect MSU on the wings. The Blue Devils’ size also made it difficult for the Bulldogs to get Alwal, a 6-foot-4 center, involved in the offense. Alwal was 2 of 9 from the field.
“Their defense was good, but a lot of times we had open looks and we just couldn’t knock it down,” Alwal said. “It goes back to us. We need to get back in the gym — I keep saying we like I am still here — our guards need to get back into the gym and just shoot. Like Morgan, they were leaving her open a few times and they were daring you to shoot. I think she should take offense to that, so everyone needs to get into the gym and make shots, so when they do do that to us we can score.”
n MSU was 2 of 12 with three turnovers in the run. The stretch was similar to the one MSU endured against Kentucky in the SEC tournament. After building a 15-point against the Wildcats, the Bulldogs struggled to hit from the perimeter or to re-gain their rhythm. Vivians, who suffered a broken finger nail on her right thumb against Kentucky, didn’t have another injury, but the freshman was 5 of 17 from the field (3 of 11 from 3-point range) and couldn’t find the touch she showed at the end of the first half when she hit a trey from the right wing to give MSU a 28-24 halftime lead.
“The second half was a little tough because they were face-guarding me and Dominique Dillingham,” Vivians said. “You’re trying to get open for your shot and get it off quick, and I think that’s what affected my shot most.”
n Duke used its size to exploit mismatches, as Stevens, a 6-5 guard, posted smaller guards like Grant, who is 5-10, and was 9 of 13 from the field in a 40-minute effort.
“Azura has just grown so much,” Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “If she isn’t Freshman of the Year, I’ll tell you what, I don’t know who is. She’s been incredible how much better she’s gotten along the way, and she knows how to use her height. Of course, we’re trying to get the ball inside and recognize those mismatches and also set some screens and get her active. I can’t say enough about her. The fact that she played 40 minutes — again, I really didn’t know that. I thought I took her out. That is incredible. If you saw Azura play in December, she couldn’t play 20 straight minutes. She would’ve been just dying to come out, and to see the intensity that she kept and how she played, I’m pretty happy I’m kept her in. But I think it’s a great lesson for her. She’s a special, special player.”
MSU countered Duke’s size in the first half by moving Vivians to point guard. With 6-3 senior center Elizabeth Williams playing in the middle of the Blue Devils’ defense, Vivians used her quickness and ballhandling ability to create scoring chances. But Duke countered in the second half, going player to play on MSU shooters early and then relying on the width of the two wings at the top of the defense to take away perimeter shots.
“We played a lot of different defenses,” McCallie said. “We changed them a lot so we didn’t stay in anything that they could get comfortable in. We started the game in some basic things and then we had to see how the game broke. Then in the second half, we changed defenses much more so than we did in the first half.”
Ka’lia Johnson added back-to-back driving layups early in the run to help fuel Duke’s surge. Schaefer said those baskets epitomized the difficulty in guarding the Blue Devils because Dillingham, who was guarding Greenwell, was the help defender on the play. With Dillingham chasing Greenwell, a 6-1 3-point shooter, she wasn’t in position to help James when Johnson beat her off the dribble.
McCallie credited Johnson, the team’s point guard, for slowing down in the second half. Duke shot 55.6 percent (10 of 18 from the field) but trailed at halftime because it committed 14 turnovers. The Blue Devils had only three turnovers in the second half and shot 50 percent from the field (14 of 28) in the final 20 minutes.
“I think she went a little fast in the first half, and then I think she settled down beautifully and had those two great takes off a play,” McCallie said. “Ironically, it was off a read — the play was for Elizabeth and Becca, so she was an indirect scorer on that. But she read that beautifully twice, and that gave the team so much energy. Two really key plays. She was terrific.”
Still, MSU had chances down the stretch to make it closer. William hit two free throws with 1:21 to go to cut Duke’s lead to 58-52. But a foul that wasn’t called on Greenwell extending her arm to push off Dillingham led to a technical foul on Schaefer with 1:02 to go. Greenwell hit those two free throws as part of a 7-for-17 effort from the free-throw line in the final 3:05 that was enough to send Duke to the Sweet 16 for the fifth time in the past six years.
MSU, which was making its return to the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 2009-10 season, wasn’t able to reach out and grab a hold of another victory to secure its second trip to the Sweet 16 in program history.
“I think you have to take your hat off to Duke,” Schaefer said. “They attacked us in some areas where we were a little bit vulnerable during that stretch. Can’t score, can’t defend is a bad deal in my business. We went through that against Kentucky in the second half of the SEC tournament. We went through that a little bit tonight.
“It has kind of been what I have said all year, though, offensively we have fluctuated up and down, and I am still waiting for us to have that great game. Unfortunately, now I am going to have to wait until November for us to have that great offensive game.
“Again, I think you have to take your hat off to Duke. They’re pretty good at home. I would like to play them in two days back at our place in the Hump. I am pretty sure that isn’t going to happen.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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