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Everyone Involved as Duke Runs Past N.C. Central
12/29/2009 1:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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DURHAM, N.C. - The final box score was the topic of conversation following the Duke women's basketball rout of N.C. Central Monday night from Cameron Indoor Stadium.
All 11 Blue Devils that stepped on the court Monday night scored a bucket, pulled down a rebound and recorded a steal.
"Some really good things for us as a team, trying to be very detailed and very focused on what we needed to do as a team coming off of break," head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "I thought everybody on our team did something important. I thought we played two strong halves, and I have never really seen a stat sheet like this in my 18 years or 17 and a half years of head coaching."
Duke (10-2) dismantled N.C. Central forcing 45 turnovers in the 117-28 victory. It was the first action for the women's team since topping Maine last Monday on the road.
McCallie wanted to see her team put together two strong halves of basketball. The final result left her pleased. The win set the school record for largest margin of victory (89), which was previously 65 points.
"I really thought our team did a good job of finding people and moving the ball," McCallie said.
The 45 forced turnovers led to 60 Duke points, with the Blue Devil full court press stifling the Eagles throughout the game. The 45 turnovers tied a school record.
Duke opened up the game with a 22-0 lead. N.C. Central would not score until the 14:31 mark of the first half. By then the game was long over. Duke forced 23 turnovers in the first half recording 17 steals with Karima Christmas and Joy Cheek each forcing three apiece.
"I think we just feed off of our defense and the main thing we have been trying to do is get into passing lanes and deny passes that could easily go to the wings," Christmas said. "That is one of our strong points and we've been working on it every game."
"I think we just came out focused and intense," Cheek said. "We had goals set that we kept in mind, and we wanted to hold onto that and execute what we were supposed to do offensively."
"We did a pretty good job."
They did better than pretty good. Duke set a school record by forcing 31 steals, outscoring the Eagles 66-4 in the paint and hoisting up 39 more shots than their opponent. Duke finished 47-of-80 (.588) from the floor connecting on 10 three-pointers.
N.C. Central made just nine total shots from the field for the game.
Cheek finished with a team-high 16 points, while Christmas scored 15. Krystal Thomas, Jasmine Thomas, Keturah Jackson, Shay Selby, Kathleen Scheer, Alexis Rogers and Allison Vernerey all scored double-figures.
"It was fun to try a lot of different lineups and to work on a lot of different defenses to give people chances out there to do things," McCallie said. "That really is a fun part [of basketball] to be able to use a lot of players and to be able to move people from position to position."
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