Virginia Tech Dominates No. 15 Duke Behind Georgia Amoore, Elizabeth Kitley

Georgia Amoore shot 994 three-pointers by herself after a “bad” mid-week practice, as described by Kenny Brooks following Virginia Tech’s surprise loss to Liberty in early December, one in which she shot 2-of-10 and only scored four points. The Hokies’ head coach told his point guard in a half-joking, half-serious way that she needed to shoot 1,000 threes before she left the practice facility.

Of course, he didn’t think that she’d stick around after practice to chuck up a ridiculous amount of shots, but under her own drive, she went out with one of the assistant coaches and put in the extra time.

“I needed to meet with her in my office later in the day so I called her up but couldn’t find her,” Brooks recalled after the Hokies’ win over Radford on Dec. 12. “I had another assistant go look for her and send her into my office. When she arrived, I asked, ‘where were you?’ and she replied that she had gotten to 994 threes when she was told to come meet with me.”

The extra hours Amoore put into re-finding her shot paid off — in a big way. It helped her find a fluid shooting motion — something Brooks said she found against the Highlanders. It helped her with her 5-of-7 day from deep in a win against Florida State last week. 

And it helped Amoore score 20 points against No. 15 Duke, her second consecutive 20-point game, in Virginia Tech’s (10-3, 2-0 ACC) upset win over the Blue Devils (9-2, 0-1 ACC) at Cassell Coliseum on Thursday night, 77-55.

“I think it’s maturity, like we’ve gone through some stretches and we’ve come out of them on the better side, so I think mentally, we’ve grown,” Amoore said, alluding to Tech’s early season losses against Tennessee and Liberty. “Together we’ve grown, our chemistry has grown.”

For the third game in a row, VT beat its opponent by 17-or-more points behind an all-too-familiar game plan: Push the ball down low to a 6-foot-6 Elizabeth Kitley; but when she’s double-teamed in the post, kick it out to an open shooter from beyond the arc. It’s a balanced blueprint, one the Hokies can continue to map out, refine and tweak as they navigate the ACC gauntlet the rest of the way.

“I think [the win] says we’re pretty good, too, that’s what I keep telling a lot of people who will listen,” Brooks said. “We’re good, too. We stumbled, we had a bad week — we had a bad 48 hours [with losses to the Vols and Flames]. You take those 48 hours out and, you know, we’re sitting right where Duke is right now.”

The tandem of Amoore’s shooting and passing ability with Kitley’s awareness in the paint is one that’s worked all too well for the Hokies to open conference play. After scoring 34 points last Sunday against FSU, Kitley’s 27 points against Duke were a game-high, where she shot 9-of-18 and was perfect from the line in her nine attempts.

“We have Elizabeth Kitley — it’s as plain as that,” Brooks said when describing how this team is different from previous years.

Just as she’s done all season, Kitley took VT’s first possession down low, backed a defender and laid a shot in from under the hoop, tying the score at two. Then a few possessions later, as the Hokies and Blue Devils traded baskets, Kitley drilled her signature step-back fadeaway, giving her team a four-point lead.

Those sequences provided stability when Aisha Sheppard, who drew the attention of the Duke defense, started off 0-for-3 from the field. And when she was tightly guarded, like she was when Tech was up 14-11, she found Kitley open under the basket for an easy two points.

There wasn’t much of a weakness shown from Virginia Tech. It had a chance to spend a week-and-a-half preparing for the Blue Devils, which allowed the team to focus on the task at hand. Brooks says his group is at its best when it locks into the scouting report, puts it into practice and then translates it throughout the game. 

That’s exactly what happened against Duke.

“We got our defensive scout and at the end of the day, some shots are going to drop and some aren’t,” Amoore said. “I think we’ve done a really good job of sticking to the scout and personnel.”

In the first three quarters, Tech only allowed Duke to make 12 of its 51 shots (23.5%). It limited Duke’s opportunities in transition and forced the Blue Devils into ugly turnovers. 

Late in the first period, Taylor Geiman picked off a bad pass by Duke’s Vanessa de Jesus, which set up Kayana Traylor’s transition three to extend Tech’s lead, 19-11.

“Bringing the energy on defense will give us good offense,” Kitley said.

Plays like those allowed Tech to pull away. Its lead ballooned from six points at the end of the first quarter to 18 at the end of the first half. It wasn’t supposed to turn into a blowout, even as Duke missed some of its top contributors, Shayeann Day-Wilson and Imani Lewis, due to health and safety protocols.

“We had enough talent here to win the game, and we were outplayed,” Duke head coach Kara Lawson said. “That’s the story. And there may be games we have certain players, and we don’t have certain players. And I’m not going to sit up here and ever want to complain about that.”

But it’s exactly what unfolded when turnovers and bad shot selection led to open treys for Virginia Tech, when the Hokies’ defense caused disruptions and their open three-point attempts connected. The Blue Devils couldn’t keep up with the barrage of threes the Hokies hoisted up.

It’s a formula that led VT to blossom its lead up to a game-high 31 points halfway through the third quarter. One that Brooks can stick to when Virginia Tech gets into the heart of the ACC schedule, and one that can allow the Hokies to compete with even the toughest conference opponents.

Box score: Link