Duke coach Kara Lawson mentioned the teams performed with a males’s basketball for the foremost half of a loss to Florida State on Sunday.
The sixteenth-ranked Blue Devils misplaced to the Seminoles 70-fifty seven in Tallahassee, Florida — the workforce’s second Atlantic Coast convention lack of the season.
After her workforce beat Pittsburgh fifty three-forty 4 on Thursday, Lawson ended her information convention by talking animatedly about Sunday’s sport.
“this may by no means happen in a males’s sport. this may by no means happen,” she mentioned. “it is embarrassing for our sport.”
The circumference of a women’s ball is about an inch smaller than a males’s ball, and it is typically 2 ounces lighter. whereas it may not appear to be so a lot, that is a large distinction.
Lawson mentioned that all by way of the foremost half, Duke gamers have been “complaining regarding the ball.” The Blue Devils have been 7-for-34 from the sphere inside the opening 20 minutes of that sport. They have been 12-for-38 inside the second half. Florida State made 10 of its 30 photographs inside the foremost two quarters and 14 of 31 inside the second half.
“To have a sport that, on the extreme of the season, may very effectively be the distinction between a seed, between a title, my gamers do not deserve that and neither do their gamers,” Lawson mentioned. “it is a full failure. and also you will decide who the people i am talking about that failed the sport and our gamers and each teams.”
Lawson mentioned assistant coach Winston Gandy went to the scorer’s desk on the half to confirm on the ball when he realized what the difficulty was. She mentioned the sport officers modified the ball to start the second half.
“we now have concluded by way of our investigation that it was a males’s ball,” Lawson mentioned. “The convention and Florida State is saying that it wasn’t.”
Lawson mentioned she needed to enchantment the sport nonetheless the convention wouldn’t let her.
“Let me be clear: Florida State beat us,” Lawson mentioned. “They beat us having fun with with a males’s ball inside the foremost half and a women’s ball inside the second half. however i can not say if we’d have performed with a women’s ball inside the foremost half and the second half that we’d have gained. however they’re going to’t say that, both.”
Lawson mentioned the ACC has instituted a rule change beneath which gamers ought to confirm the proper ball all by way of the captains’ meeting earlier than the tipoff.
“it is very irritating that [the game] … was not dealt with with the utmost respect that gamers on each teams deserve,” she mentioned.
This wasn’t the foremost time this has occurred in women’s basketball. In 2017, the school of Charleston performed dwelling video games and practiced with males’s balls for a lot of its season till the error was found.
0 Comments