Miami Hurricanes’ bid for back-to-back wins vs. ranked teams falls short vs. Duke

Coming off an upset victory over Georgia Tech on Sunday, the Miami Hurricanes’ women’s basketball team nearly scored back-to-back wins against ranked opponents in a three-day span on its home floor on Tuesday afternoon.

The Hurricanes’ efforts fell short, however, as No. 21 Duke pulled away during the final five minutes of the game and dealt Miami a 58-49 loss at the Watsco Center.

Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi matched a career-high with 19 points and Kelsey Marshall delivered another strong performance with 15 points to lead Miami (9-6, 2-3 ACC), which led 45-44 with 4:58 left in the fourth quarter.

UM coach Katie Meier praised Djaldi Tabdi and Marshall’s contributions. But against Duke, which shot 42.3 percent from the field and finished with 16 assists, more was needed from the rest of the Hurricanes’ lineup.

“We had a couple of no-show performances. We had a couple of players that needed to check themselves and get their focus back,” Meier said. “We didn’t deserve to win this game from the jump. We started flat. If you take Kelsey and Maeva out of the equation, that’s about 70 percent of our scoring, effort, everything. I’m proud of them, but there’s a lot of zeros on this boxscore. Everybody took Tuesday off.”

Marshall reached double-digits for the 11th time this season and sparked a 9-2 run which pulled Miami even at 26 with 1:36 before halftime. Back-to-back three-pointers from Marshall and Djaldi-Tabdi followed by freshman Ja’Leah Williams’ drive to the basket gave the Canes their late advantage.

But the Blue Devils (12-4, 3-3 ACC) closed out the game on a 14-4 run sparked by seven points from Miela Goodchild, who finished with a team-high 17 points.

Aside from Williams’ eight points, no other Hurricanes’ player scored more than four points.

Miami was unable to replicate the same defensive effort which led to its 46-45 win over No. 15 Georgia Tech on Sunday during which it held the Yellow Jackets to four points over the final 10 minutes and forced seven turnovers.

“We were a little fatigued and mentally off,” Marshall said. “We tried to run certain plays for certain people and we just weren’t executing well enough. And defensively, we weren’t communicating well enough.”

The Hurricanes will play their next two games on the road starting with a trip to Tallahassee to face rival Florida State on Thursday at 8 p.m. before facing Boston College on Sunday at noon.