"San Francisco played a tremendous basketball game," Duke head coach Gail Goestenkors said. "I give them all the credit in the world. They were very impressive. They attacked us on offense. They all stepped up.... They played with a great amount of intensity, poise and confidence, and deserved to win the basketball game. They just did a tremendous job."
After falling behind by a 20-point deficit at the midway point in the second half, the Blue Devils finally engineered a comeback. Paced by freshman Payton Black, who notched a career-high 24 points against the Lady Dons, Duke charged back with a 14-0 run to close the gap to six, 61-55, with 3:43 remaining in the contest.
For a moment, one could imagine the comeback of all comebacks. But San Francisco nailed just enough baskets in the waning minutes of the game to secure itself the upset.
"We hit big shots when they were really coming back in it and getting into the game," Lady Don Brittany Lindhe said. "They played a great game."
San Francisco scored just five points in the last 10 minutes of the game, but it was just enough to send the Lady Dons to the Sweet Sixteen and leave the Blue Devils wondering about what ifs.
"We thought Duke had one big run left," USF co-head coach Bill Nepfel said. "Duke's a very good team and you are not going to get through a game like this without surviving one run and they made it. We had enough cushion and that's about what it came down to."
For the final 10 minutes, the Blue Devils played to their potential. But 10 minutes was not enough for Duke on Monday night.
"I'm very proud of the players for the effort they gave 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."
The Lady Dons fed off of their strikingly quick start, as they drained nine of their first 10 shots, opening up an early 18-5 lead in the first seven minutes of the contest. The Lady Dons capitalized with defensive rebounds throughout the entire first stanza, grabbing 16 boards from the Blue Devils' end of the floor.
"We did not do a good job," Goestenkors said. "I thought we were rushing early on. We were not attacking the basket. We were rushing our shots and we paid for it. We were getting one shot and out and they were coming down to the other end and executing their offense and scoring."
Although Duke managed a small comeback in the first half, cutting the score to six in the final minute, a Lindhe three-pointer widened the San Francisco lead to nine at the break.
After halftime, the Lady Dons just built on their lead, achieving their highest margin of 20 with 9:47 remaining.
Even in the final seconds, though, Duke still had a chance for victory. Two late three-point attempts by junior guard Kira Orr and freshman Hilary Howard both wound up slightly off the mark in the final minute, and the Blue Devils' last hopes for a win were crushed.
But the Blue Devils admitted that they had breakdowns throughout the entire game, and several fundamentals were absent on Duke's side of the court.
"We didn't do the job, especially on the defensive end of the floor," Goestenkors said. "I don't feel like we were intense as we needed to be."
The momentum and intensity seemed to be on USF's side all evening, as it ended up with all the loose balls and breaks.
"I think they stepped out on the court-from the tip of the ball-they were ready to play and we weren't," Orr said. "We had to pay the consequences."
The Blue Devils shot an abhorrent 0-of-13 from beyond the three-point arc, and missed 10 free throws, many of which were front ends of one-and-ones.
"I think we didn't make free throws, we didn't make our three pointers, we missed easy layups," senior guard Jennifer Scanlon said. "It's a combination of a lot of things. I don't think that it's just one thing."
Lindhe led the San Francisco attack with 17 points, on 7-of-18 shooting. Although the Blue Devils were able to contain USF's Valerie Gillon-who lit up Florida for 28 points Saturday night-to a mere nine points on the evening, reserve Julie Murdent and Renee Demirdjian poured in 14 and 12 points, respectively.
Black paced the Blue Devils with 24 points, 10 of which came during the frantic last 10 minutes of the final stanza. She also led Duke on the boards with nine. Orr poured in 14 points and picked up eight rebounds, while junior Tyish Hall put up 10 points.
The contest not only ended one of the best women's basketball seasons in Duke history, it also marked the final game of Scanlon and fellow senior Alison Day.
"Right now, all I can think about is the fact that we lost," Goestenkors said. "We have had a tremendous season. I feel very sorry for Jen and for Ali that this is the end of their career, that it had to end this way."
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