Coach Gail Goestenkors still has not watched the tape of her team's 1999 defeat to Purdue in the national championship game.
Yet within a week of ending last season in Spokane, Wash., she reviewed the tape of Duke's loss to Southwest Missouri State.
"We had a great year, but it's different when you don't attain your ultimate goal, you tend to focus on the last game you've played," she said.
Goestenkors said she would rather focus on the season as a whole. That 30-4 season included an ACC championship--regular season and tournament--as well as the Blue Devils' first No. 1 seeding in the NCAA championship.
This summer, Duke is focusing on next season. And if the preliminary schedule indicates anything, it is that the Blue Devils hope to return to the top of the sport.
Dec. 27 will see the rematch of perhaps the most memorable game in Goestenkors' career, the Duke-Tennessee game that saw the Blue Devils drop the titan Volunteers in the Elite Eight of the 1999 NCAA tournament and launched Duke's reputation as a major player in women's basketball. Duke will meet Tennessee at the Peach Bowl, one of three nationally televised games next season. The Blue Devils will also play Texas Tech and Louisiana Tech.
In the meantime, however, Duke is preparing in a number of ways. Next year's point guard, sophomore Alana Beard, who was last season's national freshman of the year, joins Duke's two recruits, Monique Currie and Wynter Whitley, on the U.S. junior national team. Both of the incoming freshmen are expected to make an impact.
"Playing on a USA team is going to put them ahead of most incoming freshmen," Goestenkors said, adding that it is always impossible to tell how a recruit will perform freshman year. "It's so much tougher, mentally and physically than high school."
A number of other players are also working at home this summer, including sophomore Iciss Tillis and next year's only senior Krista Gingrich, whose main goal is to return to top health after an injury-plagued season last year. Gingrich is the only remaining member of the team who went to the 1999 Final Four in San Jose.
Sophomores Rometra Craig, Vicki Krapohl and junior Sheana Mosch have been working out and taking classes at Duke, while junior Michele Matyasovsky, who started the final eight games of last season, is interning with the Charlotte Sting.
Perhaps the most interesting summer belongs to Georgia Schweitzer, who graduated in May. Goestenkors said she is doing well with the Minnesota Lynx. The coach says she talks with her former player every couple of weeks. Schweitzer, who joins former teammate Michelle VanGorp, Trinity '99, on the team, scored 10 points in a game last week in a 73-52 win against the Portland Fire.
As Goestenkors watches one of her former players start a career in the WNBA, she also welcomed back a former player to her staff, Shaeeta Brown, who played for Duke from 1993-1998.
"She was part of my first recruiting class," Goestenkors said. "She was injured most of her career, so it forcer her to see the game as a coach sees the game."
Brown replaces former assistant coach Shonta Tabourn, who will work with a number of camps next year.
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