In the first matchup of the season between Duke and Georgia Tech, the Yellow Jackets didn't have a prayer of winning. In the two teams' second meeting, the Blue Devils needed a 35-foot prayer at the end of the first half just to escape against the Yellow Jackets.
After being handed an embarrassing 67-point loss in Durham exactly a month ago, Tech responded yesterday with 40 inspired minutes of basketball against the ninth-ranked team in the country and nearly pulled off an improbable upset.
"I'm very happy to come away with the win," Duke coach Gail Goestenkors said. "This was our fifth road game out of the last six, and I think it's showing a little bit-we were a little fatigued. I'm proud of the kids; they kind of gutted it out."
Had it not been breaks that went Duke's way at the end of both halves, the Blue Devils could very well have tasted their first ACC loss of the season.
Tech's freshman sensation, Niesha Butler, converted a sensational three-point play with a flashy penetration lay-in and the ensuing free throw to regain a 43-41 lead for Tech with just under four seconds left in the first half, apparently giving Tech a monumental boost heading into the locker room. Howard, however, received the inbounds pass, dribbled by two defenders and knocked home a 35-foot bomb at the buzzer, returning the momentum to Duke's side.
"I was not a happy camper [going into the locker room]," Georgia Tech coach Agnus Beranato said. "We played well for nine minutes and 57 seconds and someone went in the game and didn't do their assignment.... We were going to deny them.
"When we have three seconds on the clock and we're in a man-to-man [defense], Hilary Howard better not touch the ball. It didn't matter that we played so well [earlier] because that's expected.... Niesha made a phenomenal play, we had the momentum then Duke got the momentum; you take that basket away and what happens?"
The Blue Devils rode that momentum and stretched the one-point halftime lead into a 12-point lead midway through the second half. The feisty Yellow Jackets, however, refused to go away. Butler put on a one-woman show, accounting for 10 of Tech's 17 points in a stretch from the 11:56 to the 5:52 mark in the second half to cut the lead to one, and the Blue Devils gave them plenty of help.
Usually a solid ballhandling team, Duke turned the ball over on seven of 10 possessions when the Yellow Jackets made their run. Duke's four primary ball-handlers-Howard, Nicole Erickson, Georgia Schweitzer and Krista Gingrich-accounted for six of those turnovers.
The Blue Devils committed eight turnovers in the game's final 10-and-a-half minutes, but somehow never relinquished the lead. After Tech's Regina Tate swished her second free throw with four-tenths of a second left when the situation called for a miss, all Duke had to do was inbound the ball cleanly to seal the win.
And almost fittingly, sloppiness nearly cost Duke the ballgame. Inbounder Peppi Browne apparently lost control of the ball on the baseline and may have stepped inbounds to recover the ball, before finding Howard at midcourt to end the game.
"It was a definite violation that wasn't called," Beranato said. "She not only threw the ball up and caught it, but she stepped on the line. And everybody saw it."
Even in admittedly one of the poorer performances in Duke's 15-game winning streak, the team showed exactly why it has torn through the conference unblemished-mental sharpness.
With their shooting touch in a deep freeze from the perimeter, the Blue Devils recognized they weren't going to win by launching outside jumpers. The guards then looked inside to Michele VanGorp for points and found 26 of them. When Tech denied VanGorp the ball, her teammates penetrated. Even the normally cautious Howard drove the lane six times and netted six points off penetration.
"We are an excellent three-point shooting team; we couldn't buy a three-point shot," Goestenkors said. "When that's happening, then you need to go to what was working for you, and that was Michele. We did a great job getting the ball in, and we got some better looks and we penetrated. We are a smart team, and we went with what was working and it wasn't the three-point shot."
The Blue Devils might not have been good, but they were smart and lucky. Sunday, two out of three was just enough to keep Duke's perfect ACC season alive.
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