Triangle’s remarkable start in women’s hoops put to test when Duke hosts No. 1 USC
It’s hard to imagine the women’s basketball season in the Triangle getting off to a much better start than it has already, but it absolutely could Wednesday night.
Only No. 1 South Carolina has been able to beat N.C. State, Duke or North Carolina so far — the trio is a combined 27-1 — and the Blue Devils host the Gamecocks at Cameron on Wednesday in what is by far the biggest game of Kara Lawson’s brief coaching career at Duke.
An upset of the nation’s top team would be a huge step forward not only for the Blue Devils, trying to find their way forward with seven transfers and two freshmen after shutting down early last season, but for the Triangle at large. After a decade-long dry spell that saw all three schools change coaches, suddenly it feels on the verge of recapturing its past glory.
“This would be our greatest challenge of the season, nine games in,” Lawson said. “But to say if we win this game it means this or lose this game it means that, I think we’re maybe giving into hyperbole on a mid-December game in a long season. These are the types of the games we hope to be in a lot, but winning one of them doesn’t change much. You have to win a lot of them to be one of the best in the country.”
That’s exactly what N.C. State has done the past few seasons. The No. 2 Wolfpack, a legitimate national title contender coming off a pair of ACC titles and a narrow Sweet 16 loss to Indiana, a loss avenged earlier this month in Bloomington, is 10-1. N.C. State’s only loss was in the season-opener against South Carolina, despite playing a brutal nonconference schedule designed to hone a potential championship team to a fine edge.
This season, N.C. State is not alone, creating the potential for one of the most remarkable seasons of women’s basketball in the history of the Triangle.
No. 15 Duke, in its second season — first full season — under Lawson, is 8-0 behind a trio of star transfers and high-scoring freshman Shayeann Day-Taylor. The Blue Devils have already knocked off one top-10 team, beating Iowa earlier this month.
And No. 25 North Carolina, in its third season under Courtney Banghart, is 9-0, led by a pair of sophomores who took big leaps from a year ago: Deja Kelly and Alyssa Ustby.
“I think both are very good,” ACC Network analyst Kelly Gramlich said. “The difference between the two is that Duke has a win you can really hang your hat on in the Iowa win. Now Iowa is still a very good team, but they were coming off a COVID pause and that was their first game in a couple weeks. But Duke dominated them. That was very surprising, and really impressive Duke could score like they have been scoring on a team like Iowa. The only knock on North Carolina is they don’t have that kind of signature win.”
Not only are all three ranked in the top 25 for the first time since 2014, their underlying metrics are as gaudy as their records. In the Massey computer ratings, N.C. State is second, UNC third and Duke is 15th. The basketball world at large hasn’t quite caught up with that yet: In ESPN’s latest bracketology, State is a No. 1 seed, Duke a No. 5 and UNC a No. 6.
That only heightens the attention around Wednesday’s game at Cameron. The Wolfpack has a big game of its own a day later, hosting No. 17 Georgia on Thursday.
Over the passage of time, there’s always been a sort of rotating supremacy in the Triangle. N.C. State was the first to rise, under Kay Yow. Then North Carolina had its moment, with a national title in 1994. Then Duke, at the turn of the century. At times, the gap between any of the three was infinitesimal.
Then it all seemed to wither. N.C. State made the Sweet 16 once in Yow’s final seven years and didn’t return to national prominence until Wes Moore arrived in 2013. Sylvia Hatchell’s long tenure at North Carolina fell apart amid accusations of player mistreatment. After Gail Goestenkors left Duke for Texas, Joanne P. McCauley never reached the same heights amid a steady drumbeat of player complaints.
External factors played a role as well. Expansion, and the arrival of first Notre Dame and then Louisville, changed the power dynamic within the ACC from what it had been for two decades, when the path to a title more often than not ran through the 919 area code and Duke and North Carolina combined for 16 championships in 20 years.
“Those were two excellent programs to add when but it was just those two going back and forth, it didn’t have the most ACC flavor,” said Gramlich, who played at Clemson. “If those teams stay good and you can add a little more North Carolina flavor, you’d have the best of both worlds. I really wouldn’t prefer one or the other. I think you need both, to mesh the new and the old.”
It has now been 14 years since any Triangle team made the Final Four after a run of eight appearances and one national title in the 14 previous years, and it had been seven years since any of the three won the ACC until N.C. State’s back-to-back titles.
Suddenly, under three coaches with a combined total Triangle tenure of 14 years, it’s swinging back this way. And even in the glory days, it was never quite like this, with all three teams vying for national relevance and setting the stage for what may be some of the highest-stakes rivalry games in decades.
It’s been too long.
Center of the women’s basketball universe
The three Triangle teams are off to a combined 27-1 start heading into Duke’s game Wednesday night against No. 1 South Carolina. N.C. State hosts No. 17 Georgia on Thursday.
N.C. State is 10-1 and ranked No. 2. Duke is 8-0 and ranked No. 15. North Carolina is 9-0 and ranked No. 25.
The rivalry schedule this season:
January 6 North Carolina at N.C. State
January 16 Duke at N.C. State
January 27 North Carolina at Duke
January 30 N.C. State at North Carolina
February 13 N.C. State at Duke
February 27 Duke at North Carolina
This story was originally published December 14, 2021 at 5:23 PM.
