Northern Kentucky University guard Lindsey Duvall routinely puts up double-doubles to the point she approved the adjective Duvious to describe it.
This sixth straight and eighth one of the year in 25 points and 13 rebounds helped the NKU women’s basketball team run away from rival Wright State, 73-50 at Truist Arena on Wednesday. Duvall has four games with 20 or more points on the season.
“We play how we practice,” Duvall said. “We practice hard all the time. My teammates put me in great positions. I might have a double-team or a shooter on me so both things sort of help me.”
The Norse (8-4) won their fifth in a row and moved to 2-1 in Horizon League play with the win and the Raiders (1-12) dropped their 10th in a row falling to 0-3 in league play. Wright State has played a tough schedule that includes losses at Marshall, Tennessee, Ohio State and 10-1 Bowling Green.
“Defensively, we made some adjustments. We started trying to get through some screens and decided that we needed to switch,” said Camryn Whitaker, NKU head coach. “I thought the kids did a good job with just executing the game plan again. I was more nervous for this game than I was for the Cincinnati game believe it or not because when you’re struggling a bit and you come in, those kids play hard. (Second-year Wright State head coach Kari Hoffman) is a good coach. They’re trying to get things figured out. You just hope they don’t get it figured out against you. Once we got going, I felt pretty good about where we were.”
But a big reason Duvall records those double-doubles is teams cannot focus on just her. Ten different Norse scored in the win. Senior guard Ivy Turner scored above her 12.1 point per game average with 15 points to go with eight rebounds and four assists and sophomore guard Kailee Davis had seven assists and five rebounds to go with four points.
Graduate student forward/center Emmy Souder, junior guard Kennedy Igo and sophomore forward Trinity Thompson scored six points each. Souder added seven rebounds and Igo had a team-high two steals. Sophomore guard Khamari Mitchell-Steen added four assists.
Junior guard Ellie Taylor and senior forward Tayah Irvin logged 12 and seven minutes of action, respectively, for NKU doing a lot of things to help the Norse cause. Whitaker said Taylor guards Duvall and Thompson guards Souder in practice making each other better.
“I just think small things matter to the bigger picture,” Taylor said. “You add those small pieces to the big picture and it comes out in the win.”
Wright State scored the game’s first bucket on Bryce Nixon’s triple 80 seconds into the game and kept the lead entire first quarter, up 15-13 entering the second quarter. Nixon – Wright State’s leading scorer averaging 11.9 points entering the game – picked up her second foul with 5:10 left in the second quarter and had to sit the rest of the half. During that second quarter, Northern Kentucky finished the half on a 20-3 run to turn a 19-15 deficit into a 35-22 halftime lead.
Nixon finished with 11 points and sophomore guard Kacee Baumhower scored 10 to lead Wright State. Whitaker credited Turner and Mitchell-Steen for their defense on Nixon.
Northern Kentucky dominated the rebounding battle, 53-29 and had 20 assists to go with just nine fouls, nine turnovers, three steals and two blocked shots. The Raiders had 11 assists, eight turnovers, one steal and three blocked shots.
NKU increased its lead to 26 points with 3:45 left in the game. That let three reserves in redshirt sophomore guard Whitney Hay, sophomore forward Paige Hodgson and freshman guard Allison Basye receive some valuable experience.
Northern Kentucky travels to Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis on Friday at 2 p.m.