The day after the women's basketball team lost to the University of San Francisco in the NCAA Tournament, head coach Gail Goestenkors opened a letter from Missy West, one of the Blue Devils' four recruits. West described how she had scored 27 points in her state's final four and been named Ms. Basketball for the state of New York.
"Little things like that help you... look towards the future," Goestenkors said about reading West's good news.
In a few months, Goestenkors and the 10 other returning Blue Devils will be able to concentrate on the 1996-97 edition of the women's team. But for now, all the Duke head coach and the players can think about is their second-round loss to the Lady Dons, a defeat which prevented the team from reaching any of its goals for the year.
In the other two goals-winning the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season and winning the ACC Tournament title-the Blue Devils also fell one game short, finishing in second both times. Even a school-record 26 wins and 12 ACC wins can't console Goestenkors about the loss. As freshman Hilary Howard noted, the entire team expected to be playing basketball this past weekend.
"Right now, the thing I am focusing on is the last game," Howard said. "That's the one that sticks with you. That's the one that will have a significant impact on me and the rest of the team.
"I think that it will be a great motivational tool for this team this summer. There is a little bit of a sour taste in our mouths."
The Blue Devils had a similar attitude entering the 1995-96 season, after Duke fell one point short of a Sweet 16 performance in the 1995 NCAA Tournament, losing to Alabama 121-120 in quadruple overtime. But junior Tyish Hall said the two scenarios are very different. Against Alabama, the Blue Devils played the best they could have. Against San Francisco, Hall said the team only played its best during a 10-minute stretch in the second half, and that for the other 30 minutes Duke didn't show up and do the things it normally does to win.
While some reporters after Monday's game were trying to turn the Blue Devils' season into a disappointment, the players said that wasn't the case. Hall instead called it a great season that had a disappointing finish.
Outside of the aforementioned school records, Duke's most impressive feat was being able to overcome much adversity. Goestenkors was especially pleased with her team's reaction to an upset loss at Maryland, after which the Blue Devils went on a seven-game winning streak.
"The way our team responded after the Maryland game-when people counted us out when we were down-made me most impressed," Goestenkors said. "Everyone knew their roles. The most important thing was that we win."
Within that seven-game winning streak were wins at Virginia and at Clemson, two of the toughest places to play in the ACC. The Virginia victory was the first time the Blue Devils had won in Charlottesville. Earlier in the year, Duke captured another big road win when Howard knocked in a last-second shot to beat North Carolina in Chapel Hill, a feat Goestenkors had not accomplished in four years as the Blue Devils' head coach. Goestenkors had said she hoped to accomplish things the team didn't do in 1994-95, and winning those three key road games satisfied that mini-goal.
The other thing that impressed the players about this team was the unity the collective group had both on and off the court. With six freshmen composing half the team, there easily could have been tension between the newcomers and returning players. Part of the reason the team stayed together was the numerous injuries that forced different players to jell quickly. Junior Shaeeta Brown missed the entire season with a knee injury, while junior Windsor Coggeshall was hampered for most of the year by a nagging back injury. To make things worse, Howard broke her toe and fellow freshman Naz Medhanie broke her finger after the Maryland game, and both were forced to play injured throughout the winning streak.
"We all got along so great," freshman Payton Black said. "Each year, there is a lot of questioning about the pressure off the court. Every time you have to leave a team it's so hard."
Duke is losing two starters in seniors Alison Day and Jennifer Scanlon. Both players had important roles in the rebuilding of the women's basketball program, helping the team rise from the league basement to the conference tourney finals. While their play on the floor will be missed, it is their senior leadership that will be harder to replace. Goestenkors said she had never seen a player sacrifice as much of her individual effort for the team as Day, and she called Day the hardest worker in the ACC.
Replacing Day and Scanlon will be four seniors who comprised Goestenkors' first recruiting class. Goestenkors said junior point guard Kira Orr is already a leader on the floor, and she expects that leadership to be expanded to the locker room. Hall added that all of the seniors are excited about getting their chance to mold the team.
"In the other years, you stood in line and you respected the seniors," Hall said. "This is our team. What we do and what we say can make a difference."
Both Hall and Goestenkors said they cannot speak about what the team's goals will be for next season-that is something next year's squad will have to decide. Yet Goestenkors does not expect her team to aim for anything less than the best, which will mean winning both the ACC regular-season and postseason titles and making the Sweet 16. Howard said that after the game, Goestenkors told the returning players she didn't want them ever again to feel the way they felt after losing to San Francisco. And for those returnees, some of the pain is erased knowing there will be another chance.
"It's easier to take knowing we have a chance to redeem ourselves," Black said. "It's just so far away. It hurts knowing that we have to wait so many months to get the chance to redeem ourselves."
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