Defense drives Duke past Razorbacks, into Sweet 16

Top-seeded Duke fended off a potential upset in the second half of last night's second-round NCAA tournament game with one of its most impressive defensive displays of the season.

After a pair of jumpers from guard Dana Cherry narrowed the margin to only three points with 17:45 to play, ninth-seeded Arkansas (20-13) gradually went cold from the floor before hitting an absolute dead-end on offense. Duke (30-3) relinquished only 17 points to the Razorbacks in the first 18 minutes of the second half, shell-shocking the underdogs and rapidly turning a tight contest into a 75-54 second-round romp in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

With the convincing victory, the Blue Devils advanced to the Sweet 16 to play fifth-seeded Southwest Missouri State Saturday in Spokane, Wash.

"It was good effort out there tonight. We played great at times, but we did not have our inside-outside game, and that's what we have to have to be successful," Arkansas coach Gary Blair said. "Give Duke credit. They were doing a great job on post defense."

Aside from their absent inside-outside game, the Razorbacks lacked any offense at all in the second half as they endured a fruitless stretch that produced zero field goals in nearly 11 minutes of basketball.

Led by the tenacious defense of freshmen Alana Beard and Rometra Craig, the Blue Devils forced turnover after turnover, while Arkansas' missed jump shots were invariably snatched up by feisty Duke rebounders.

"I felt like we played really great defense and they became a little stagnant," Duke coach Gail Goestenkors said. "Maybe they got a little fatigued, I'm not sure.

Although they acknowledged that the constant pressure of Beard and her teammates created problems, the Razorbacks denied that a lack of energy caused their inability to score."They stepped up their defense a little bit, but we couldn't execute our offense at all. I think that was obvious," said Razorbacks point guard Amy Wright, who committed four turnovers but moved into second place on Arkansas' all-time assist charts. "We couldn't pass the ball and we couldn't get the ball into the post. I didn't think we were so tired, but our confidence was kind of busted and our momentum really wasn't there."

Duke's freshman duo opened up the team's offense by using defensive pressure to create easy opportunities on the other end of the floor. Beard and Craig scored five consecutive times for the Blue Devils and then assisted on their team's next two baskets. Their spurt enabled Duke to turn a 16-10 deficit into a 36-28 advantage by scoring on 13 out of 14 possessions, with many of those buckets coming from within a few feet of the hoop.

"I think most of our points in the paint came not from the post players, but from our guards," Goestenkors said of her team's 44-14 edge in the paint. "We had such a size advantage with our guards that we just started posting our guards up."

Duke's victory gave the team 30 for the first time in program history, adding one more record to the careers of seniors Schweitzer, Rochelle Parent and Missy West. In the last four seasons, Schweitzer, Parent and West have taken part in 59 victories in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

"Thirty wins-that's a lot of wins," Schweitzer said. "It's a great step for our program and hopefully by the time [Beard and Craig] graduate, that will happen on a regular basis."

The Blue Devils now travel across the country to face a Southwest Missouri State squad fresh off a mini-upset of fourth-seeded Rutgers.

Goestenkors said she has yet to review any tapes of the Bears, but Duke's defense will likely focus around premier scorer Jackie Stiles, who scored 32 points last night against Rutgers. Stiles, the all-time scoring leader in women's college basketball, will likely be matched up against defensive specialist Beard.