Duke basketball: Lady Blue Devils get UNC weekend off to great start

The Duke basketball program got North Carolina weekend off to a roaring start as the Lady Blue Devils downed the Tar Heels on Thursday night in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Duke and North Carolina met for the first time this week on the hardwood and it came inside Cameron Indoor Stadium on the women’s side.

After a back and forth affair in the first half, the Blue Devils used a 12-0 run to start the third quarter to extend its lead and then held off a late North Carolina run to win the game, 71-61.

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Duke was led by its star Haley Gorecki who came so close to a triple-double with 25 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists playing all but a handful of seconds on Thursday night.

The victory improved Duke to 12-10 on the season and 6-5 in ACC play while North Carolina fell to 16-7 and 7-5 in the conference.

Thursday night was also the 100th all-time meeting between the teams and the Duke victory moved the series to be split right down the middle at 50-50.

The statistic is eerily similar to the men’s side as the schools have split the last 100 matchups and scored the same amount of points, 7,746.

Excluding Gorecki, Duke saw three other players reach double-digits on Thursday night Mikayla Boykin, Leaonna Odom, and Jade Williams all scored at least ten points with Boykin posting 11 points while Odom and Williams both scored ten.

Duke shot 47.5 percent from the field and 36.8 percent from 3-point range while the only reason why North Carolina was able to hang around in the game was on second-chance points as the Tar Heels outscored the Blue Devils 23-3 in that category.

The women’s teams will meet once again on Sunday, March 1 in Chapel Hill at 2:00pm EST but the men’s teams will square off on Saturday, February 8 at 6:00pm EST in the Dean Dome as the game will be broadcasted on ESPN.