With a showdown against No. 2 Tennessee looming Saturday night, the top-ranked women's basketball team (14-1, 5-1 in the ACC) will look to stay focused on conference foe Maryland (12-5, 4-2), which will be traveling to Durham for tonight's 7 o'clock game at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
The Blue Devils are coming off one of their shakiest contests of the season last Sunday, when they defeated Virginia 64-53, and head coach Gail Goestenkors wants her team to perform better as it looks to extend its 48-game winning streak in the ACC.
"We did not have a particularly good game against Virginia, so we want to come out and try to improve," Goestenkors said. "It doesn't matter who the opponent is; every game we want to get better."
Although Duke has beaten Maryland six consecutive times, the Terrapins are vastly improved from last year's 10-18 team and currently sit in third place in the conference.
Freshman guards Shay Doran and Kalika France, who combine for 25 points per game, lead a revamped backcourt that is the strength of the 2003-2004 squad.
"[Maryland] is pretty guard strong," Duke senior Vicki Krapohl said. "They just do a great job moving the ball, and they're going to be a totally different team this year than they were last year. In the past we've been beating them pretty badly, and I think this year they're going to come ready to play."
Krapohl and point guard Lindsey Harding--who is tied with Maryland's Alli Spence for sixth in the league in assists with 4.27 per game--will be largely responsible for shutting down Doran and France.
"Their freshmen have been stepping in for them a lot this year," Harding said. "They're very guard-oriented, and we've got to stop their transition and get into the lane offensively against them."
In addition to their freshman tandem, the Terrapins have been getting strong post play from 6-foot-3 center Delvona Oliver, who is one of the most improved players in the ACC. Oliver's matchup inside with Duke center Mistie Bass, another candidate for the conference's most improved player, will be one of the keys to the game.
"Delvona Oliver is a good post player for them who has a big, strong body and can also shoot the three," Goestenkors said. "She is one of the most improved players in the conference, along with Mistie Bass, so I think that's going to be a really good matchup."
Maryland will be looking to improve on last year's dismal showing in Cameron, when six Blue Devils scored in double figures to lead Duke to a 101-52 blowout victory.
For the Blue Devils to have similar success this year, they will need to show more patience on offense than they have in recent games.
"We need to get back to moving the ball a little more," Krapohl said. "I think in the Virginia game we were doing one pass and then a shot a lot of the time. We need to move the ball and take a little more time off the clock on offense and make Maryland work a little harder than Virginia."
Goestenkors has been preaching discipline on the offensive end in practice, and she hopes that her team will respond tonight.
"Sometimes I feel like we're in such a rush to score and be ahead by a lot that we rush things," Goestenkors said. "We're working on showing more patience. If we have a good shot, we still want to have that attack mindset, but if not we want to work a little bit more. Instead of getting a good shot, we want to work for a great shot."
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