Duke women's basketball erases 14-point deficit, beats North Carolina in overtime

By Louis Fernandez, WRAL Sports

After trailing by 14 points in the third quarter, Duke women's basketball erases the deficit and finishes the double-digit comeback in overtime, beating rival North Carolina in Cameron Indoor Stadium on Sunday. Freshman Delaney Thomas led the way with a career-high 19 points and seven rebounds against the Tar Heels.

"I think the fact that we had been down in others stays and we had still shown the ability to come back," Duke head coach Kara Lawson said after the game.

"It's supposed to be hard," Lawson laughed. "It's Duke-Carolina, it's supposed to be challenging."

UNC led by one point at halftime, but exploded in the third quarter, outscoring the Blue Devils 20-9 during those ten minutes. Senior guard Deja Kelly played the entire quarter, scoring 11 points, grabbing four rebounds and an assist.

Things changed after that, Duke outscored the Tar Heels 34-14 in the fourth quarter and the following overtime period.

This isn't Duke's first rodeo when it comes to double-digit deficits. The Blue Devils erased big leads against Stanford, South Carolina, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest.

"Keep each other steady, keep each other going, we were able to pull together and stay through that tough time," Thomas said.

Thomas' two previous highest scoring performances came on the road against Stanford (14 points) and at home against South Carolina (13 points).

"She's shown the ability to rise against the top teams in the country and impact our team, I just knew she'd play well," Lawson said.

As for the Tar Heels, the team has now lost four games in a row, two of which have come in overtime. Head coach Courtney Banghart says her guards have to play better.

"These guys are the first ones to point inward, they just didn't do a good enough job at it, so as a result we took contested shots instead of getting open shots for each other," Banghart said.

UNC had seven assists on 19 made shots. Duke's bench outscored the Carolina bench 31-6. The Tar Heels have a ton of injuries, especially in the backcourt, but aren't looking at that as an excuse.

"We're not good right now, we can be, but we're not right now and we just have to continuously get better. Overall the emotion is pissed off," Kelly said.

Duke is now 16-7 this season, 8-4 in ACC play while North Carolina is 15-9, 7-5 in ACC play. Next up, the Blue Devils will play top-25 Virginia Tech in Blacksburg on Thursday, while UNC will host Pittsburgh on Thursday.