After thrashing SMU on Sunday 95-36, the Duke women’s basketball team has extended its win streak to 15 games. It’s Blue Devils longest longest under sixth-year head coach Kara Lawson and best since the 2012-13 season.
Injuries to junior wing Jadyn Donovan and highly-touted freshman product Emilee Skinner have forced Duke to do it with a tight rotation. The Blue Devils have seven players averaging north of 18 minutes per game, and an eighth — guard Anna Wikstrom — has seen a slight uptick recently.
Duke’s starting five is among the best in the country, led by sophomore forward Tony Fournier and anchored by a pair of senior guards in Taina Mair and Ashlon Jackson. Riley Nelson has emerged as an athletic 3-and-D wing who can knock down shots from behind the arc, and Delaney Thomas continues to be a versatile do-it-all forward.
More recently, Duke has been boosted by the play of redshirt freshman Arianna Roberson. A five-star prospect and McDonald’s All-American, who was ranked eighth in the 2024 recruiting class by ESPN, Roberson missed all of her true freshman season with a knee injury.
Now, Roberson is living up to the hype bestowed upon her as a prospect. In Duke’s lopsided victory over the Mustangs she had 22 points and 16 rebounds, her third double-double off the bench in the Blue Devils’ last five games.
“There were a lot of highs and lows, the ebbs and flows … every time I step on that court, it’s a reminder of being grateful and being in the moment,’ Roberson said Sunday. ‘I didn’t have this a year ago, and so I never want to take that for granted again.
“Because the game was taken away from me, and I loved it even more when it was away.”
At 6-foot-4 with a 6-foot-8 wingspan, Roberson gives the Blue Devils a combination of size and skill off the bench. Since a Jan. 8 road win at Cal where she scored 20 points, Roberson is averaging 11.7 points, 7.7 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.5 steals per game. She’s also shooting 42.8% from 3 during that stretch.
Roberson wears a brace and sleeve on her left leg, but it hasn’t stopped her from being a physical presence in the paint or diving on the floor for loose balls.
“Ari is unique in a lot of ways for us, not just having a double-figure scorer off the bench, but all of the things that she brings,’ Lawson said. ‘She’s very skilled — highly skilled. She’s a really good passer. She has a great understanding of the game and what we need from her defensively. As she’s getting healthier and healthier, and her movement is improving, she’s showing you the versatility to be able to switch on the guards and keep people in front.
“We feel that her best is ahead of her. … She can be a totally different player a month from now than she is today.”
With a road Quad 1 victory over Louisville last Thursday, Duke is in sole possession of first place in the ACC and in position to grab a top 16 seed for the NCAA Tournament, giving the Blue Devils hosting rights during the opening weekend of March Madness. This is what voters in the ACC preseason poll expected when they voted Duke No. 1 back in October.
Duke’s non-conference slate — the toughest of any Power 4 team — was rough as the Blue Devils started 3-6 and fell out of the national rankings. But Duke is back on track. The play of Roberson has been one of the reasons why.
The next step for Roberson, Lawson said, is to do what she did against SMU against one of the better teams in the ACC. She’ll have two opportunities. Duke hosts rival North Carolina on Sunday and hosts another Tobacco Road foe, NC State, next Thursday.
“To have a double-double against the top teams — to do that, it takes a different level, approach, physicality, IQ, which she has all inside of her. Can you get a double-double like in Thursday’s game (against Louisville)? That’s harder to do,” Lawson said. “That’s what you’re looking for. In the biggest games of the season against the biggest opponents, can you be impactful?”
Big South hands down eight-game suspension
Punches were thrown last Wednesday in a Big South game between High Point and Winthrop, which the visiting Panthers went on to win 88-74. On Saturday, the Big South handed down its punishment, suspending junior forward Tocarra Johnson eight games for fighting, citing a violation of the league’s Ethical Conduct Policy.
“I want to reiterate the Big South Conference’s unwavering commitment to upholding the integrity of our competitions and ensuring accountability when our standards are not met,” Big South commissioner Sherika Montgomery said in a statement. “College athletics serve as a laboratory not only for academic and athletic development, but most importantly for personal growth.”
Winthrop is 11-14 this season under coach Semeka Randall Lay. Johnson is the team’s leading rebounder, averaging 6.1 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.3 steals in 20.8 minutes a game. Unless the Eagles make the semifinals of the Big South Tournament in Johnson City, Tennessee, her season is over.
No disciplinary actions were handed down to any players from High Point.
Hot seat watch
When longtime USF coach Jose Fernandez left the Bulls in late October for WNBA’s Dallas Wings, his longtime assistant Michele Woods-Baxter was named the interim head coach. USF was coming off its fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in five years and was picked as the preseason favorite in the American Conference.
However, multiple sources told USA Today Sports there’s no guarantee Woods-Baxter has the interim tag removed. Those sources added, unless USF wins the American Conference Tournament to punch its ticket to March Madness, first-year CEO of Athletics Rob Higgins will likely conduct a national search to make his own hire.
USF’s season has been a mixed bag. While the Bulls notched an impressive non-conference victory over Duke in November, they also looked less competitive in blowout losses to UCLA, Minnesota, UConn, South Carolina and Vanderbilt. USF hasn’t lived up to its preseason billing, losing three of its last five games in conference play, falling to fourth place in the American.
Over a long tenure in Tampa, Fernandez built USF into one of the signature mid-major powers in women’s basketball. He piled up nearly 500 wins, had 12 seasons of 20 or more victories and won the WNIT in 2009. USF has appeared in nine of the last 12 NCAA Tournaments and has won the American three times since 2021. USF advanced to the second round of March Madness five times under his watch.
Should this job open, it could be the best mid-major gig available and should attract many candidates.
Tip-ins
Clemson inked head coach Shawn Poppie to a contract extension through the 2030-31 season last week. He will earn about $850,000 per year, putting him in the top half of the ACC’s highest-paid coaches. The Tigers are 17-8 overall this season and 8-5 in league play, eyeing their second NCAA Tournament appearance since 2002 in Poppie’s second season at the helm. Poppie is also bringing in the nation’s fourth-best ranked recruiting class next fall.
UCLA point guard Kiki Rice was one of 60 women’s sports figures to sign a letter calling for ICE to cease and desist. The letter, also signed by the likes of Sue Bird, Maya Moore and Diana Taurasi, says in part: ‘When we say ‘ICE OUT,’ we are calling for institutions and policies that uplift communities, not ones that fuel fear and violence.’ Nebraska volleyball star Harper Murray also signed the letter.
NYU won its 82nd consecutive game on Sunday with a 69-58 victory over Carnegie Melon, giving coach Meg Barber and her team ownership of the longest win streak record in the NCAA’s Division III ranks. UConn owns the overall NCAA record for consecutive wins with a 111-game streak, a run from 2014-17 that included a pair of national titles. Barber’s Violets are aiming for what would be their third consecutive national championship this season.