RALEIGH - Duke's hopes of receiving a number one seed in the NCAA tournament suffered a severe blow yesterday, as the Blue Devils lost to N.C. State 69-55 in front of 8,000 hostile Wolfpack fans at Reynolds Coliseum. Although Duke led for most of the game, the Wolfpack (17-8, 8-6 in the ACC) used a 17-2 run late in the second half to overtake the Blue Devils (23-3, 11-3) and pull away for a double-digit victory.
With N.C. State playing tenacious defense, Duke suffered through its worst offensive showing of the entire year yesterday, shooting a season-low 31 percent from the field. While Duke co-captain Georgia Schweitzer made 9-of-17 shot attempts in scoring a game-high 20 points, the rest of the Blue Devils combined to shoot only 24 percent, an outrageously low number. In fact, during an 11-minute stretch in the first half, Duke scored only seven points, all from Schweitzer.
After the game, an extremely disappointed Gail Goestenkors, while acknowledging the Wolfpack's tremendous defense, cited a stagnant motion offense as the primary reason for Duke's woeful offensive showing.
"[N.C. State] played exceptional defense, very impressive team defense,
Goestenkors was also very critical of Duke's interior game.
"I was very upset at halftime with my post players, because we had no inside game at all," the Blue Devil coach said.
"Unfortunately, today our players were not very smart offensively, and on the defensive end other than Rochelle Parent, who played exceptional defense on Carisse Moody, all our other post players did not help us."
Conversely, while Goestenkors could only shake her head in moderate disbelief in her team's poor showing, Wolfpack coach Kay Yow glowed when describing her team's performance.
"The big thing was we played hard on defense," she said. "We knew we had to work extra hard defensively, and we did that."
Yow particularly praised the play of senior point guard Tynesha Lewis and freshman reserve Adeola Olanrewaju, who came off the bench to register her first career double-double.
With usual starter Monica Bates hampered by an injury, and with Parent shutting down Moody, N.C. State looked to Olanrewaju to produce in the post.
"Adeola's been the first sub off the bench," Yow said. "We have a lot of confidence in her, so we expected [a solid contribution]."
Olanrewaju provided terrific interior play for the Wolfpack. In addition to contributing 16 points, including 14 in the second half, she pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds. Olanrewaju played 31 minutes in yesterday's contest, an unusually high number for a reserve, and outshined Duke star freshman Iciss Tillis, who only had eight points and four rebounds.
The game's pivotal matchup pitted Lewis and Schweitzer, two of the ACC's elite point guards. Both players played the game's entire 40 minutes, during which they relentlessly attacked one another.
Initially Schweitzer clearly outplayed Lewis, outscoring her 16-2.
"She abused me in the first half," Lewis said. "Being a competitor, I took it as a challenge."
A pumped-up Lewis responded in the second half, scoring 17 of her team-leading 19 points, guiding the Wolfpack to their decisive 17-2 spurt that decimated the Blue Devils.
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