ROCK HILL, S.C.-When the No. 12 women's basketball team took the court for the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament finals Sunday, it had everything going its way. With top-seeded Virginia ousted by Clemson in the semifinals, the second-seeded Blue Devils were favored over the Tigers to win their first ACC title.
But after 40 minutes of basketball, Duke didn't cut down the nets. Instead, it was the Tigers who captured their first ACC title with a 71-54 win. The loss marked the second time in two years the Blue Devils had reached the tourney finals before falling short of their ultimate goal of a championship.
From the outset, the championship game was controlled by Clemson. The Tigers went on a 21-6 run early in the first half to take an early 25-8 lead. Duke never recovered from that huge deficit.
"I thought [Clemson] just dominated us, from the tip-off to the final buzzer," Duke head coach Gail Goestenkors said. "We wanted to control the tempo, and I never felt like we did. Every facet of the game we were dominated, whether it was rebounds, offensively attacking the basket or getting to the free throw line-they controlled the game."
The Blue Devils cut the lead to 35-28 at halftime, on three-pointers by senior center Alison Day and junior forward Windsor Coggeshall. In the second half, Duke trimmed the deficit to five with 14:59 left in the game on a Jennifer Scanlon three-pointer. Every time the Blue Devils went on a run, Clemson answered back with a run of their own. The Tigers also answered on the free throw line, hitting 18 of 20 free throws in the last three minutes.
"We had a history of taking a good lead and then losing it later on in the game," said Clemson's Laura Cottrell, the tournament MVP. "I think we all realized what we had to do. When the lead started dwindling, we kind of planted our feet and... we withheld their run."
Goestenkors said the biggest problem for the Blue Devils was their inability to execute their offense. All season long, Duke always felt like it was never out of any game, and Sunday's contest was no exception. But the Blue Devils were in such a hurry to get back in the game that they were impatient with the basketball. That lack of patience led to either turnovers or poor shot selection. Goestenkors said when Duke's execution should have been at its best, it was at its worst.
This was the third time Duke and Clemson had met this season with the Blue Devils winning the previous meetings. But with the ACC title on the line, it was the Tigers who had more intensity. On offense, Clemson took the ball to basket early in the game and got Duke into some early foul trouble. On the other side of the court, the Tigers used a swarming defense to knock the Blue Devils out of sync offensively. Junior guard Kira Orr said the Tigers simply outhustled the Blue Devils.
"I think that is something that makes the loss a little more painful-they outhustled us and outplayed us," she said.
Duke was also outhustled in parts of the quarterfinal game, when it squeaked by seventh-seeded Wake Forest 67-61 Friday afternoon. Duke dominated the first half, ending the first 20 minutes on a 16-0 run that was capped by an Orr buzzer-beater from halfcourt. The Blue Devils entered the locker room with the game's momentum, and left it there for the game's final 20 minutes. As fast as Duke gained a 19-point advantage, the Demon Deacons went on their own run in the second half, slicing the lead to 41-36 in just six and a half minutes.
Nearly every Duke player who had a great first half had a miserable second half. Junior Tyish Hall had 17 points in the first half and none in the second. Similarly, freshman point guard Hilary Howard played a great floor game in the first 20 minutes, but then made careless mistakes in the second half.
Still, Duke found a way to win by hitting the key shots. When the Blue Devils lead was at five, two three-pointers by Scanlon and Howard increased the lead back to 11. When the lead was down to five again at 54-49, a Kira Orr three-pointer put it back to eight. And finally it was a Day shot from beyond the three-point arc that pushed the lead to double figures with 4:45 left in the game.
"It was when and how they scored that broke our backs," Wake head coach Karen Freeman said. "It was more of that psychological damage. Duke is a great three-point shooting team. I felt like every time they let it go, it was at critical times that they let it down."
Duke found the intensity it was missing Saturday afternoon against N.C. State. The Wolfpack was the only team to sweep Duke during the regular season, and the Blue Devils were not about to fall victim a third time. Duke used a 15-5 run in the middle of the first half to take an 11-point lead at halftime. Things only got better for the Blue Devils after intermission, as Duke increased its lead to as much as 24 points on the way to a 79-62 win.
"I thought our overall focus and our level of intensity for 40 minutes was excellent," Goestenkors said. "We had something to prove-to ourselves, not to anyone else-that we can be successful against N.C. State. They are a great team. We lost to them at home, lost to them on the road, and we were determined to beat them on a neutral sight."
The stars of the game were Howard and fellow freshman Payton Black. In a 13-2 run midway through the second half, Howard scored four points while Black scored six. On the night, Howard tallied career highs in rebounds (8) and assists (9) while scoring 13 points. She was a direct benefactor of Duke's quick-hit offense, which relied on the pick-and-roll. Goestenkors said that offense was something the Blue Devils had worked on the week before the tournament. N.C. State head coach Kay Yow said one of the Wolfpack's biggest problems was stopping the pick-and-roll.
The Duke defense also contributed to the big lead, as the Blue Devils shut down State's star players. Wolfpack center Chasity Melvin only had one basket in the first half, while State three-point specialist Jennifer Howard was 1-for-7 from the field on the night. Goestenkors said she wanted to have one player shadow Howard all night, and she thinks the pressure on State's point guard put the Wolfpack offense out of sync.
"We did not want [Jen Howard] to touch the basketball," Goestenkors said. "I thought that Hilary did an excellent job keeping the ball out of her hands. Once she got in the quarter-court, we just told Hilary to follow her."
Goestenkors said after Sunday's game that the media and the fans got a glimpse of how good the Blue Devils could be in the N.C. State win. But Sunday, she said, the team was brought back to reality. She thinks the loss to Clemson can only help the team for the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
"I think we all understand that we have some more basketball to play and some of our best basketball is yet to be played," she said.
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