The women's basketball team used the winter break to prepare itself for the upcoming conference schedule. And from the looks of their performance, the Blue Devils should find themselves near the top of the Atlantic Coast Conference when ACC tournament time rolls around.
Duke enjoyed a relatively easy December, traveling up north and knocking off West Virginia and Manhattan before returning to North Carolina to participate in the ACC Big Four Classic in Greensboro. Senior center Alison Day said the team was taking its opponents too lightly in the games early in the season. But over the break, the team gained more concentration.
"Before Christmas, I didn't feel really good about how we were playing," Day said. "I felt like we came back after Christmas and got focused and we're ready to play."
Duke defeated West Virginia 84-64 on Dec. 18, and came back two days later to beat Manhattan 73-61. The game against the Mountaineers was the long-awaited debut of freshman point guard Hilary Howard, who had been sidelined with a stress fracture in her foot. But at the same time that Howard returned, junior guard Windsor Coggeshall came down with a stomach virus, which limited her playing time throughout the break.
After Christmas came the Big Four Classic, a new tournament featuring Duke, N.C. State, Kentucky and Syracuse. Day said the team was expecting to face tough competition throughout the tourney, but that was not the case. First came Kentucky, who the Blue Devils easily handled 73-54. The next night, Duke destroyed the Orangemen 84-40 in what head coach Gail Goestenkors called the team's best overall effort.
Then came the return of the conference season and a trip to Raleigh on Jan. 4 to face No. 14 N.C. State. The Duke team that dominated Syracuse didn't appear for the first 14 minutes of the Wolfpack game, as N.C. State launched out to a 16-point lead. Goestenkors said the State game was an exception to the Blue Devils' overall focused nature over break. She cited both the physical nature and the athleticism of the Wolfpack as the reason Duke didn't play well early on.
"It was the first time that we started getting pushed around, and we did not respond well," Goestenkors said.
But the Blue Devils bounced back, taking the ball to the basket and overall playing more aggressively in the last six minutes of the opening half. By the time the two teams entered the locker room at halftime, Duke had cut the Wolfpack lead to just two.
Goestenkors was especially proud of the way her team battled back, and then took control of the game in the second half. But the team was unable to hold on to its lead. Costly turnovers and missed free throws at the end of the game led to Duke's demise.
Even with the loss to N.C. State and Monday's loss to UVa, Goestenkors is pleased with where her team stands after break.
"We've really taken our defense to another level, which is really important when you get into conference play," Goestenkors said. "We're getting better offensively--we're running a little more motion and getting a little more movement in our offense."
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