A 20-point deficit with under 10 minutes in the game. Problem? Not for this Duke team, one that came from 13 behind at halftime to win at Virginia for the first time in school history. That was just one of the numerous records the 1995-96 edition of the women's basketball team accomplished this year-26 wins, 12 conference wins. And added to that list was supposed to be a trip to the Sweet Sixteen.
But the Blue Devils are not going anywhere. Instead its the 12th-seeded San Francisco LadyDons, from the relatively unknown West Coast Conference, that are headed to Rosemont, Ill., after upsetting fourth-seeded Duke 64-60 in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Duke finished the year with 26 wins, but a lot of seconds this season-second place in the Atlantic Coast Conference, second in the ACC Tournament, gone in the second round of the NCAAs.
Entering the Duke locker room after the game, you could hear a pin drop among the sniffles fighting back the tears of defeat. Players sat in their lockers with their heads down, not moving, not wanting it all to end. Down the hall, the Lady Dons' locker room was also quiet. But that's because all of the players were still out on the court celebrating the victory.
Duke's only lead came on the game's opening basket-a Tyish Hall jump shot. From then on, it was all San Francisco. The Lady Dons were up 22-11 midway through the first half, and had a 12-point lead at an official timeout with 3:07 left in the half. At that point Duke head coach Gail Goestenkors told her team to try to cut the lead to five by halftime. They trimmed it to six with 10 seconds left when a Brittany Lindhe three-pointer upped the lead to nine at halftime.
In the locker room, Goestenkors told the team to go out and pressure the ball and play the Duke basketball that had earned the Blue Devils their 26 wins this season.
"At halftime she told us if we went out and played our game...we would come back and win," senior Jennifer Scanlon said.
Of course they would win. This was the team that always could come back. From any deficit. But when the lead increased to 20, even senior Alison Day began to think that this may be her final collegiate game. Lucky for her, she didn't relay that thought to any of the other players.
The Blue Devils cut the 20-point lead at the 9:47 mark down to four with five minutes left in the game. That should have been plenty of time for a team that had scored an average of 75 points per game to get four points. This Duke team had fought back from deficits time and again. Both Scanlon and Day said they felt confident with the lead down to four that the Blue Devils could steal the slipper away from the Cinderella Lady Dons.
Instead the clock struck midnight on the Duke season. Junior Kira Orr's three-pointer with 8.9 seconds left in the game-a shot that in other games might have swished through the net-clanked off the back of the rim. It was just one of 13 three-point shots that did not fall for the Blue Devils on the night. The team that was known to be potent from both the outside and inside lost half of that Monday night.
"I'm very proud of the players for the effort they gave in the last nine and a half minutes of the game when we were down 20 points," Goestenkors said. "But 10 minutes of great basketball at this point in time is not going to get you to the Sweet Sixteen. It's going to take 40 minutes. We did not give 40 minutes."
The two games in the Mideast Subregional were eerily similar to Duke's performance in the ACC Tournament. The Blue Devils had a huge win over North Carolina State in the semifinals, only to crushed by Clemson in the tourney finals. After that game, Goestenkors said Duke didn't do the little things, such as rebounding and converting free throws, to win the game.
Monday night, it was the same story, as Duke shot 12-for-22 from the free-throw line. Normally, that performance would have earned Duke players a chance to shoot 100 free throws a piece, like they did after an earlier loss to Virginia. Instead, there is no practice-the season is over.
"In a lot of games this year free throws have been the difference, and just the fact that we didn't hit them the whole game when we could have made it a little closer," Day said. "But instead it was like we were down by 14 or 15."
For Day and Scanlon, this was their final game in Duke uniforms. To Day, the game was a personal disappointment, as she was held scoreless for just the second time this season. The other time the result was a little better-Duke won the game at Virginia. But the Duke women's basketball program has come a long way since the two seniors were freshmen, when the Blue Devils finished last in the conference.
"'I'm very disappointed that it had to end this way, in a disappointing game where I didn't play my best basketball," Day said. "You go though life with a lot of disappointments and you learn to deal with them and you learn from them. My four years here have been a great experience for me.
"I've been able to experience some exciting wins and disappointing losses. I've had the whole spectrum of feelings. I'm proud of our team and what we have accomplished this season. Honestly, I thought that we were going to go a little farther than this, and it's hard to end this way. But you can't have it back. It's over now."
Yes, the 1995-96 season is over. And all fans can look toward now is the future. But fortunately for Blue Devil fans, that future is bright, and the nearly 4,000 fans who were in Cameron on Monday night got a glimpse of Duke women's basketball to come. One of the only positive things to come out of the loss was the play of freshman Payton Black, who had a career-high 24 points, 10 of which came in Duke's 14-0 run in the second half. Since Black and five other freshmen still have three years on the team, Day thinks Duke fans won't have to wait too long for another home NCAA game.
"I think there is a lot to be said for what these guys are going to do in the next three years," Day said.
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