The scenario is all too familiar by now. The No. 13 women's basketball team plays a lethargic first half, a better second half and eventually pulls out a win. The final part of that series is what concerned Duke head coach Gail Goestenkors the most, so she couldn't be too upset after her team knocked off Georgia Tech 78-66 Wednesday night in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
"I really felt we would be ready to play because we've had real good practices," Goestenkors said. "But I didn't feel like we were up on our toes, we did not attack them. I was real frustrated with our effort.
"I think we did a better job in the second half attacking them. We shot 54 percent, you have to be pleased with that, but I think defensively we had a lot of breakdowns."
Many of those breakdowns occurred in the first half, as the Blue Devils actually trailed the Yellow Jackets by two with 5:52 left in the half. Shea Matlock, Tiffany Martin and Kisha Ford were leading a balanced Tech offense, finding the holes in Duke's defense.
While its opponents went to numerous offensive options in the first half, Duke concentrated on two--senior center Alison Day and junior forward Tyish Hall. The duo scored 26 of the Blue Devils' 38 first-half points, with Hall going a perfect 8-for-8 in the first half. The two didn't stop in the second half, as Day finished with 23 points and Hall matched her career high of 30. Georgia Tech, with its tallest starter at 5-foot-11, could not stop Duke's potent inside players.
"Obviously their size affected us," Yellow Jacket head coach Agnus Berenato said. "Duke has two tremendous players in Ali Day and Tye Hall, and they really only needed two players."
For Hall, it was a breakthrough performance. The All-ACC and All-America candidate opened the season on a tear, but had been relatively quiet over the past three games. She blamed the poor play on distractions over winter break and concentrating too much on her mistakes. When classes started, the distractions went away and Hall's game returned.
Even with Hall playing perfect, Georgia Tech hung around and the two teams entered the locker room only separated by five points. Duke opened the lead to 10 at the 15:25 mark when an official's timeout was called.
"I told the team, `This is a team that is not going to give up. We have to put them away right now,'" Goestenkors said. "We started to put them away, we got the lead up to 16, and then they started to creep back in. They just play with a lot of heart. They don't give up."
On the other sideline, Berenato was reminding her team that Duke was susceptible to losing the big lead. And that's what the Blue Devils did, as the 16-point advantage was sliced to seven with 5:12 left. The Yellow Jackets used a tough half-court trap that knocked Duke out of its offensive momentum.
"We felt that if we could continue to apply the pressure that we could win the game," Berenato said.
At the 5:12 mark, Goestenkors called a timeout and told her team to play smart. She told them they had gained their big lead by attacking the Yellow Jackets and that the lead had shrunk when they stop attacking. They started the attack mode again and upped the lead to 14 with three and half minutes left. Duke's head coach was especially pleased with her team's performance at the end of the game, the third time in three games the Blue Devils have put a team away in the closing minutes.
"I thought we did a fantastic job down the stretch, working the clock and getting a great shot with just a couple seconds left on the [shot clock]," Goestenkors said. "I guess that's what I was pleased with more than anything else."
Even with the positive ending, the team is flustered about the pattern of its last three contests. Day said one of the possible explanations is that the team is not used to its national prominence and being the target of huge upsets.
"What we want to do ideally is come out and jump on somebody--like we were at the beginning of the year--and take it to them so early on they don't even think that they can play with us," Day said. "Sometimes I think that we're too cocky. We think we're better than we really are."
The Blue Devils will have plenty of time to ponder that mystery and other things before its next contest on Jan. 24 at North Carolina. Duke will have the day off tomorrow, and then it's back to the basics.
"I feel like we've gotten away from the basics, which is something we haven't been able to work on because we've had so many games so quick," Goestenkors said. "We need to work on ourselves first for several days."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.