South Florida ladies lead wire-to-wire in surprising upset of No. 9 Duke

The South Florida Bulls held a commanding 20-6 lead after the primary quarter and by no means trailed the whole sport in a 65-56 upset of No. 9 Duke on Saturday.

Whereas South Florida solely tried 9 threes within the sport, the Bulls made 5 of them and shot 46 p.c from the sector total.

South Florida’s main scorer was Sammie Puisis (23 factors). L’or Mputu had 17 factors (8-for-11) and 11 rebounds, together with this offensive rebound and putback 4 minutes into the third quarter, which prolonged the Bulls’ result in 38-24.

After Duke minimize into the South Florida lead and made it a five-point sport early within the fourth quarter, Puisis made this three-pointer to reply the run and provides South Florida a 47-39 lead with simply over eight minutes left.

The Blue Devils had bother discovering the underside of the web all through the sport. Duke was solely 38.9 p.c from the sector and 4-for-17 (23.5 p.c) from lengthy vary.

The one Duke participant in double figures was Toby Fournier, who scored 11 factors and grabbed seven rebounds off the bench. Duke’s beginning 5 mixed to shoot 12-for-36, which may spell bother for the Blue Devils as they put together for his or her upcoming ACC slate.

Whereas South Florida had misplaced six video games and 4 of its final six video games earlier than Saturday, 4 of the Bulls’ six losses have come in opposition to ranked opponents. South Florida will seemingly want extra three-point pictures to go down than their 5 on Saturday. Nevertheless, if they will shoot on the fee they did in opposition to Duke, this could possibly be an indication of excellent issues for the Bulls.

South Florida (7-6) opens up AAC play at Rice on Dec. 29, whereas Duke (10-3, 1-0 ACC) can have almost two weeks off earlier than resuming ACC play in opposition to Boston Faculty on Jan. 2.