GREENSBORO, N.C. — After cutting down the net Monday night in Greensboro, emerging victorious for the fifth consecutive year in the ACC Tournament, head coach Gail Goestenkors clutched the rim and did five pull-ups—one for each league title.
Although the Duke coach strained to complete the final pull-up, the game which it represented was less of a struggle. The top-seeded Blue Devils (27-3) took control of the contest midway through the first half, and while the Tar Heels (24-6) made runs, a combination of tenacious defense and easy baskets for the Blue Devils prevented North Carolina from testing the Duke lead.
“We played like it was senior night,” Goestenkors said. “I am very proud of the entire team.”
The Blue Devils—who returned to No. 1 in the nation for the second time this season and will enter the NCAA tournament as the nation’s top team for the second consecutive year—went on to beat the No. 10 Tar Heels 63-47 as Mistie Bass danced on the podium, Vicki Krapohl, Iciss Tillis and Jessica Foley joined the cheerleaders in dance and Alana Beard instructed Brittany Hunter on how to coax her loop of the net from the rim.
The victory capped four years of domination by the Blue Devils over the rival Tar Heels and the ACC. Led by the senior trio of Alana Beard, Tillis and Krapohl, Duke became the first team—male or female—to win four consecutive regular season and ACC Tournament championships.
Additionally, Beard, Tillis and Krapohl have never lost to the Tar Heels, a span that has included wins to capture the last three ACC Tourney crowns.
Leading the Blue Devils in scoring Monday night was Tillis, who garnered ACC Tournament MVP honors for the second time in her career. The senior spoke after the contest about the impact of the award, and how her recent strong play has had an effect on her confidence, which has wavered at times this season.
“It is very important,” Tillis said. “Everything had kind of come up for me, like my rebounding has gotten so much better, and passing and defense.”
Tillis was a major contributor in a Duke offensive flurry that gave the Blue Devils a 19-point advantage with just under seven
minutes remaining to essentially seal the title. During the stretch, Duke’s strong interior defense and solid rebounding facilitated fast break opportunities and easy scores.
Not wanting to expend her final timeout, all North Carolina head coach Sylvia Hatchell could do was watch as Duke scored 11 straight points. The record ACC Tournament crowd of 11,466, which included University president Nan Keohane and athletic director Joe Alleva, was sizably in Duke’s favor and sensed the Blue Devils were only moments from cutting down the nets in Greensboro once again.
And while the Blue Devils could not make their shots fall for much of the game, going only 1-of-14 from three-point range, the Duke defense propelled the team to victory. Especially in the post, the Blue Devils used their size to keep the Tar Heels from scoring around the basket.
“I felt like our team defense was the best it has been all year long,” Goestenkors said. “I don’t know if we’ve ever played
defense like that for forty minutes in the history of our program.”
A key component of the defensive effort was Beard—recently named ESPN.com’s National Player of the Year—who shut down North Carolina’s quick and offensive-minded point guard Ivory Latta. The freshman who scored 25 against the Blue Devils during the last meeting in Chapel Hill and marshaled 27 as the Tar Heels defeated N.C. State
to advance to Monday night’s final game, shot just 3-of-21 from the field and was held to a single assist.
Still, Duke struggled to hit shots form the perimeter and the entire half-court offense seemed out of sorts at times, but Mistie Bass went 7-of-7 from the field, scoring primarily in the post.
“I think she did a tremendous job posting up and calling for the ball,” Goestenkors said. “Our perimeter players did a great job getting her the ball. She was hitting layups on the inside. I thought our team did a really great job looking for her down low.”
The first half was punctuated by a technical called on North Carolina’s Leah Metcalf when she shoved Beard to the floor after fouling the Duke guard on a move to the basket. Metcalf’s lack of composure was a sign of frustration on the part of the Tar Heels as Duke began to pull away following a tight opening stretch.
“We were playing good defense and when that technical was called, we really pulled together as a team and got fired up,” Tillis said. “We knew that we could really have an advantage with that call.”
After the technical, Duke promptly extended a six-point advantage to a 30-15 lead just two minutes before halftime. North
Carolina responded and cut the Duke lead to nine at the break, but the Blue Devils returned from the locker room and did not allow the Tar Heels back into the game.
Duke now has a week and a half to prepare for the NCAA Tournament, which they will enter as a No. 1 seed at Cameron Indoor Stadium March 21. And for a team that has had its eyes set on a National Championship since it lost in the Final Four
last season, Monday night’s victory represents just the first step in a month that will define this team’s season and its place in history.
“This tournament of course is something that we really wanted to win,” Tillis said. “And as I told Alana earlier in the day, our
legacy wouldn’t be complete until we won four in a row here...But now it is time to conquer a new fate and that is winning a National Championship.”
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