Two wins this weekend have the Lady Blue Devils flying high into the Sweet 16, but Goliath is waiting for them.
The Duke Women’s Basketball team handed out two serious beatdowns to #12 Belmont and #4 Georgia.
Leaonna Odom provided Duke with a major spark Saturday against Belmont, pouring in a career-high 25 points in the 72-58 victory.
Also reaching double figures for the Lady Blue Devils were Rebecca Greenwell, 18, Lexie Brown, 13, and Erin Mathias adding 10 points.
Despite holding Belmont to under 40% shooting, the Bruins still had three players reach double figures.
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Kylee Smith put up a 20 spot on Duke, while senior Sally McCabe ended her college career with a 14 point performance. Darby Maggard was on the floor for the full 40 minutes and contributed 12 points.
The Blue Devils were on their way to the Second Round to take on the winner of Georgia and Mercer.
The Georgia Lady Bulldogs snuck past Mercer 68-63 to set up a showdown with Duke.
The way the NCAA Women’s Tournament is set up, the top 4 seeds in each region host the first two rounds. So, Duke would be playing a road game as Georgia was the #4 seed.
The crowd was quickly silenced, as Duke used a 20-2 second quarter to get past the Lady Bulldogs. Duke ran Georgia off of their home floor 66-40.
It was once again Leaonna Odom leading the way for Duke with 16 points. Lexi Brown and Erin Mathias were right behind her with 14 points each.
Lexi Brown also added 6 assists, which broke the single-season assists mark by a Duke Women’s Basketball player. Brown broke Alana Beard‘s record of 114 assists.
The Blue Devils defense was absolutely suffocating, holding Georgia to 23.5% from the floor and 1-17 from three-point range.
The only player on Georgia who had more than 5 points was Caliya Robinson who had 11 points.
Only two universities have both their men’s and women’s team in the Sweet 16, Texas A&M Univerity and Duke University.
The win for Duke moved them into the Sweet 16 to face the #1 overall seed, the UCONN Women. The Lady Blue Devils will take on the top team on Saturday, March 24th at 1:30 pm ET.