UConn Game Commentary

For 25 minutes Saturday night, Duke looked like the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. Then the Blue Devils came back, and in front of a screaming, sell-out Cameron Indoor Stadium crowd and a national television audience excited about a matchup between women's basketball's two best teams, showed they truly belonged. Duke lost in the first four minutes by turning the ball over four times. Ann Strother stole the ball from Iciss Tillis just 19 seconds into the game, then Alana Beard double-dribbled and both Tillis and Beard threw passes away. At the first media timeout Connecticut led 10-5 in the middle of a 10-point run. "We had a lot of anxiety out there today," head coach Gail Goestenkors said. "I thought we were ready to play. We had a great shootaround. We felt very comfortable and very confident. When we stepped on the floor... we seemed to tighten up a bit. I don't know if it was the atmosphere." The Blue Devils certainly tightened up in the first half, frequently throwing passes out of bounds and missing jumpers. The Blue Devils hit two-of-seven three pointers in the first half, but that shooting percentage was actually better than Duke's five-for-25 performance from inside the arc. Tillis and Beard each shot two-for-seven and had four turnovers. After Vicki Krapohl hit a three-pointer on a set play with 7:20 remaining in the half, Connecticut held Duke scoreless the rest of the way in a 15-0 run. "A lot of times in games like this, one team just plays really, really well and the other team gets really frustrated and it gets away from them," Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma said. "I think that's what happened in the first half. I think the Duke kids got a little frustrated because they couldn't make any shots and things weren't going their way. You could see it in their faces those last seven minutes [of the first half]." For the Blue Devils, the No. 1 team in the country since the preseason polls, all the hoopla and fanfare around the game might have been too much. Cameron sold out for a women's game for the first time in history, and the press row side of the indoor stadium was full of Cameron Crazies for the first time. The atmosphere surrounding the game was comparable to an important men's game, and while that's no big deal for Connecticut, it likely threw the Blue Devils off. The Huskies are used to sold-out, bigger arenas and the noise, albeit more than what they're used to, was less of a shock than it was to Duke. "At one point when we started to make our comeback, I couldn't hear myself think," Beard said. "It was awesome. I really appreciate the Cameron Crazies coming out. They did an awesome job." Down 28 five minutes into the second half, Duke was on the verge of utter humiliation in front of a home court crowd and a national television audience. Respect for the program was being diminished, if not destroyed. But when Auriemma received a technical foul, and the Blue Devils grew accustomed to their crazed fans and actually used the fan support to bolster them and intimidate the Huskies, Duke showed that it is ready to be a major player in college basketball. As the crowd roared as loudly as in any men's game of the year, the Blue Devils roared back in a ferocious comeback, that only fell short through Duke's exhaustion and the clock. "If the game had kept going at the end of the game, we might've lost by 10," Auriemma said. Whether the Blue Devils' comeback will be enough to maintain the interest of the often-fickle Crazies remains to be seen, but the way Duke tore back into the game showed the women's basketball world that though no longer the No. 1 team, Duke is ready to compete in the spotlight. A packed house and a national television audience in Atlanta two months from now might not feel so intimidating now.