jjohnson@heraldsun.com; 419-6667
DURHAM -- While the scoreboard reflected a 35-point victory by Duke over Hampton on Saturday afternoon at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the visiting Lady Pirates made their brief appearance in the NCAA Tournament a test for the Blue Devils.
Duke, the No. 2 seed in the Memphis Regional, fought off the pesky Pirates 72-37 to earn a second-round matchup on Monday against No. 7 seed LSU, which beat Hartford 60-39 in the first game of the day.
The Blue Devils were led by Keturah Jackson, Jasmine Thomas and Karima Christmas, who each scored 13 points. Jackson was perfect on the day, going 6-of-6 from the floor, including a 3-pointer.
Thomas remained steady, sparking her own seven-point run with a steal and layup, another basket in the land and a 3-pointer. Christmas brought the Cameron crowd to its feet when she converted an alley-oop pass from Thomas on a sidelines out-of-bounds play.
"It was a good, strong game from everybody," Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "Obviously, we subbed a lot of people and played a lot of players and the intensity was maintained. We took care of the basketball, we shot well and I thought we played some pretty good defense."
Hampton, the champions of the MEAC and winner of 14 of 15 heading into the contest with the Blue Devils, played with an intensity that McCallie applauded. She said it provided her team with a good warmup for LSU.
"Hampton helped us with their quickness," McCallie said. "It was an up-and-down game. There were hustle plays all over the court."
Hampton was able to hang with Duke to begin each half before the Blue Devils' size and strength advantage became overwhelming for the Lady Pirates. Hampton actually held an 8-5 lead four minutes into the game. But from that point, Duke outscored Hampton 35-6 the rest of the half thanks to its pressure defense.
"They were really aggressive with their press," Hampton forward Quanneisha Perry said. "You can't relax against them. We tried to go with our gameplan, but we couldn't do the things we needed to do."
But the Pirates didn't get frustrated and continued to play hard against the Blue Devils.
"I want to be clear that we had a tremendous season," first-year Hampton coach David Six said. "We were picked sixth in our conference and still won the MEAC championship with seven freshmen and four sophomores.
"What we need to do now is take the blueprint from the Dukes and the Tennessees and the UConns and understand that they started somewhere, too."
Duke's advantages over Hampton were easy to spot in the final statistics. The Blue Devils outrebounded Hampton, which did not have a player taller than 6-0 in the game, 47-31. Duke also had a 34-16 advantage scoring in the paint, 15 points off Hampton turnovers and 15 second-chance points.
"I thought we took advantage of everything we could," McCallie said.
Duke's two-week layoff between games did not seem to effect the Blue Devils' efficiency on offense, as they shot 45.6 percent (26-of-57) with each player getting at least eight minutes of playing time. Duke also made 16 of 22 free throws (72.7 percent) and matched its season low with 11 turnovers.
"I think we started with a lot of energy," Thomas said. "Usually in games like these, when we do have a large margin or are up by a lot, we tend to throw the ball away and get careless with it.
"The fact that we only had 11 turnovers was something good from us out of this game."
