"So, I guess we're human, huh?" UConn's head coach Geno Auriemma said in disbelief. "We've spent a lot of time making great decisions, and today wasn't one of those days."
Up until the final five minutes of the always-heated battle between Duke and UConn, everything seemed to make sense. With the game on the line, the Huskies put the ball in the hands of their NCAA superstar, Diana Taurasi, who made a driving shot with just over four seconds remaining, in what should have been the game-winning bucket.
How Lindsey Harding ended up giving up an open lane, passing off to Jessica Foley who hit a buzzer three point shot is unexplainable.
"It didn't feel good coming off the hand," a humble Foley admitted later. "It was a pretty lucky shot, actually."
How the Blue Devils were able to make what started out as a blowout game into a last second decision is explainable. Duke has consistently been a proponent of, as Alana Beard explained after the game, "good defense creating good offense." Saturday proved the Blue Devils' defense is good enough to keep them on top of the league.
In the final four minutes of the game, Beard, who had been shut down in the first half--the two-time All-American and Duke career scoring leader had a single point--led her team, racking up 11 points in an 18-3 run. During these final minutes, UConn was able to push the ball past half court twice.
In desperation at 64-50, head coach Gail Goestenkors set up an impenetrable full court press which forced the Huskies into seven turnovers.
"We were not planning on using the press," Goestenkors said. "If anything we wanted to use it in spurs. It got to the point where we had to do something to change the momentum of the game."
In two consecutive possessions, Iciss Tillis and Harding cornered UConn's Barbara Turner to the sidelines and were able to strip the ball and get it to Beard. Though she missed the first layup, she scored the next after the second steal by Tillis, which resulted in the first tie of the game.
"We just didn't have the toughness to handle [Duke's press] at the end," Taurasi admitted. "We pretty much dominated the whole game, and in the last five minutes we just threw it away...They started pressing and we really didn't have an answer for it."
Perhaps it was a lack of this defensive pressure that allowed Harding to own the court in the final four seconds of the game and she charged up the court unchallenged.
"I really don't know what happened," UConn's Turner said about her final moments on the court. "I don't think we froze, but I kind of think everything was just in slow-motion, and we just didn't react to it quick enough."
The team's defense on an individual level elevated the team's last minute dominance as well. After 20 minutes of play time, Taurasi handled her partner at the top of the nation's shooting average, holding Beard to a single point. Still, Beard contributed three blocks and two steals in the first half.
"I think I was a huge factor in the first half, especially on defense," Beard said in justification of her game-opening effort. "I am a shooter and I just told myself that I needed to just keep on shooting. Throughout the game, they were double and triple teaming me, and I just needed to make sure to create for myself and my teammates."
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