Duke Takes Down UNC In Overtime
A thrilling win in Cameron!
Kara Lawson has been Duke’s coach since 2020 and had not recorded a regular season win over rival UNC.
Well, she has now.
Duke got a thrilling 68-60 overtime win over the Tar Heels in Cameron Sunday night and freshman Delaney Thomas had a major breakthrough with a career high 19 points and seven boards. She also hit 8-10 from the floor.
The first two quarters were basically a wash with UNC taking a 26-25 lead at the half.
The Tar Heels had a big third quarter, outscoring Duke 20-9 but the Blue Devils caught up in the fourth, 19-7 to put the game into overtime. And the Blue Devils topped the Heels in OT 15-7.
Between the 4th quarter and overtime, Duke outscored UNC 34-14.
Taina Mair had 13 and Ashlon Jackson added 10.
After the game, Lawson had this to say:
“I mean, this game had everything. They’re really good. And I thought the start of the second half, obviously, they kind of threw a haymaker at us, and it startled us, being able to get up double digits, but just really proud.
“This group continues to be resilient and not give into the score or how we were playing at the time and just keep fighting back. Obviously, it could have gone either way. It was close all the way through. And we just made some plays there late in the fourth, and we finally started to make some shots, outside shots. I thought that gave us some confidence because we were struggling to make open shots and make open layups in particular.
“I’ll probably cringe counting how many of those we missed, but in spite of all that, we were able to get the win. Big time win for us.
“Like I said, they’re a really good team and in the league, to be able to get our eighth one, that’s good at this point. So we’ll just keep trying to get better.”
With the win, Duke moves to 16-7 overall and sixth place in the ACC with an 8-4 conference mark.
Next up is a trip to Blacksburg Thursday for a rematch with #16 Virginia Tech.
- FIRST: Duke women’s basketball forces overtime, beats North Carolina for Lawson’s first regular-season rivalry win as head coach
- Duke women’s basketball stuns UNC. Three takeaways from the Blue Devils’ overtime win
- UNC women’s basketball falls to Duke, 68-60, in overtime battle
- Duke women’s basketball erases 14-point deficit, beats North Carolina in overtime