State hosts the Duke Blue Devils on Thursday December 29th at 8:00 p.m. The game will be aired on the ACC Network.

State has a 48 to 37 record against Duke having opened the gap under Coach Moore which stood at 40-35 after Duke's home 83-70 win in February of 2014. State won the first 15 games against Duke while Duke won 10 in a row from 2001 to 2007. That ten game win streak under then coach Gail Goestenkors ended in the 2007 ACC tournament when State defeated unbeaten Duke in the semi-finals.

Taking a look at both State and Duke at warrennolan.com:

Duke has a 11-1 record overall; 1-0 conference record; NET of 11; Live RPI of 5; ELO of 16; and SOS of 12. Duke's quad one record is 3-1. Duke's best win was a 70-56 home win over NET 26 Virginia.

State has an overall record of 11-1; a conference record of 1-0; a NET of 7; a Live RPI of 3; an ELO of 4 and an SOS of 7. State's quad one record is 2-1. State's best win was the 94-81 win at NET 15 Iowa.

Against Virginia, Duke started Oregon State transfer six-six junior Kennedy Brown, Texas transfer five-eleven senior Celeste Taylor, Georgia Tech/Louisville transfer six-one senior Elizabeth Balogun, Georgia transfer five-eleven sophomore Reigan Richardson and five-six sophomore Shayeann Day-Wilson. Five-eight junior Vanessa de Jesus played 20:53 off the bench while Oregon State transfer six-three grad student Taya Corosdale played 19.59 minutes.

Celeste Taylor leads Duke in scoring at 11.3 ppg while Elizabeth Balogon is second in scoring for Duke at 9.8 ppg. Balogon also leads the team in rebounding at 5.1 per game with Brown averaging 4.7 per game. With regard to assists, one might expect Day-Wilson to lead the team, but she does not. She has 20 for the season while five-ten redshirt junior Jordyn Oliver has 45. Duke shoots 452 from the floor; 282 from the arc. Balogon is Duke's best arc shooter at 429; however, Taylor (297) and Day-Wilson (286) have attempted the most arc shots at 35 and 37 respectively. Balogon has attempted 14 arc shots. Duke's assist/turnover ratio is 1.1.

Looking at predictions for the game, Nolan likes State 67-59 with a win probability of 76%. Lobo's Look at Her Hoop Stats likes State 74.3 to 57.3 with a win probability of 91.9%. Her Hoop Stats Ratings gives Duke a value of 26.9 and a rank of 26/361 while giving State a value of 45.7 and rank of 4/361. Her Hoop Stats gives Duke an offensive rating of 103 and a defensive rating of 76.1 while the site gives State an offensive rating of 117.3 and a defensive rating of 71.6.

If both Diamond Johnson and Jada Boyd play, it is a no brainer-State wins by 10-15. If only Diamond of Diamond and Jada plays State still wins by 10+. If, of Diamond and Boyd, only Boyd plays, State still wins but by less than 10. Without both Boyd and Johnson playing the game is more likely to be a toss-up.

Go Pack!