On the heels of a regular season full of record-breaking firsts for the women's basketball team, the Blue Devils start the postseason today in Charlotte aiming for a first-ever ACC tournament championship.
While Duke (23-5, 15-1 in the ACC) seems to be everyone's consensus pick to win the tournament, in the 22 years of the tourney's existence, the Blue Devils have failed to reach even the finals.
But with a team that most agree is Duke's best ever, the Blue Devils have perhaps their best shot at bringing home the coveted championship trophy.
"We feel like if we play the basketball that we have been and that we're capable of, we should win the tournament," senior Hilary Howard said.
The first obstacle that stands in the way of the Blue Devils' hopes is Florida State (7-19, 2-14). The Seminoles, after two blowout losses to Duke earlier in the year, get one more shot at upsetting the top seed in the tournament today at 8 p.m. in Independence Arena.
Duke coach Gail Goestenkors is the first to point out the strides that the Seminoles have made since the two teams last played.
"I'm worried about the first round, just because Florida State is a very young team, and they continue to get better," she said. "They've come so close to beating some of the best teams. They took Carolina to overtime, they played us very well the second time we played them. We didn't pull away until the last part of the game."
Goestenkors' players have similar concerns.
"Even though the final scores were lopsided, [Florida State] hung with us in both games," added sophomore Georgia Schweitzer. "We definitely cannot look past them; every player on their team has made improvement."
Duke will have to contain Florida State standouts Brooke Wyckoff and Jen Robinson to stifle any attempt the Seminoles make to pull off the upset.
Wyckoff gave the Blue Devils some problems in the last meeting between the two teams in Tallahassee, scoring 18 points on 6-of-8 shooting, and Robinson proved that she can score in bunches when she hit four straight three-pointers toward the end of Duke's blowout win in Durham.
Both have had their moments during the season, but have lacked the consistency and team chemistry to help Florida State win on a regular basis.
"That's kind of the story of this team, they have different individuals that have great games at different times, but they're inconsistent," said Goestenkors. "So you know if they all put it together on the same night, they can be very scary."
Another player that concerns Duke is freshman April Traylor. For the past 10 games she has been scoring in double figures and has even tallied as many as 29 on one occasion.
Assuming the Blue Devils get past Florida State in today's matchup, they would have Saturday off to prepare for the winner of the Clemson-N.C. State matchup.
Either of these teams would present a formidable challenge for the Blue Devils. N.C. State, traditionally one of the Blue Devils' biggest rivals, battled Duke to the finish in the two meetings this year and ended up losing by single digits in both games.
"It is true that it's hard to beat a team three times," said Goestenkors. "Both times we've played [N.C. State] have been right down to the wire-very close. That makes it even tougher."
Duke would only be gunning for its second win of the year against Clemson should the Tigers defeat N.C. State. This might add extra incentive for the Blue Devils since the Tigers spoiled the team's bid to finish the conference schedule undefeated.
"It would definitely be a motivation to play them again," Schweitzer said. "Any time someone beats you, you would like the chance to play them again and prove to them [that you are the better team]."
The Blue Devils don't plan on making too many changes to prepare for the opposing teams and prefer to play their style of ball and make people adjust to them.
"We're going to look to just concentrate on ourselves," said Schweitzer. "We've been stressing the fundamentals all year-especially on defense. We are just going to continue with what is working."
The Blue Devils clearly have their sights set on winning the tournament but also want to use the game experience as a way to prepare for the upcoming NCAA tournament.
"We just want to win the ACC tournament just to give us momentum and confidence [going into the NCAAs]," said Howard.
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