The regular season is cast aside as teams head into the NCAA Basketball Tournament. A team with a .500 record can advance; an undefeated squad can be sent packing. The only things left over from the regular season come tournament time are the habits formed by a team.
Luckily for Duke, its women's basketball team is in the habit of beating Northwestern State by 52 points, and the Blue Devils drubbed the Lady Demons for the second time this year, defeating an overmatched squad 103-51.
"Obviously, Duke is 52 points better than us," Northwestern State head coach James Smith said. "We played them twice, and it was almost the identical score. I have some gift of gab, but myself and Billy Graham could not have convinced our players that we could have come here and won."
The win, an echo of Duke's Dec. 20 105-53 win against the same squad, featured stifling defense and significant scoring contributions from the bench.
"I was very pleased with our play; I was very pleased with our defense," Duke head coach Gail Goestenkors said. "I thought in the second half our offense really got rolling with our inside-outside attack and sharing the ball."
Duke got rolling early, scoring the game's first 14 points and holding NSU scoreless for more than six minutes at the start of the game. The Blue Devil offense was simply too much for the Lady Demons; the first four field goals of the game were scored by four different Duke starters. This continued throughout the game, as Goestenkors' squad had eight players with eight or more points. The scorers were led by reserve Jessica Foley, who logged 18 points on 7-for-14 shooting, as well as five rebounds. Iciss Tillis had 17 and 11, while Alana Beard had only eight points, but contributed nine assists, eight rebounds and three steals.
"I told the team that the greatest statistic for me was that we had 30 assists on 37 baskets," Goestenkors said. "I think that shows how willing we are to share the ball and trust each other."
Northwestern State made a run as soon as they began to score, pulling to within seven on an 11-point run entirely engineered by guards La'Terrica Dobin and Diamond Cosby. Cosby, seemingly the only player able to confound the Blue Devil defense, had 15 points in the first frame en route to 17 total points.
Duke was able to stop the NSU run by using a half-court press that utilized the Blue Devils' superior height to shut down Dobin, a 5-foot-4 point guard. At one point, with roughly five minutes to play in the first half, Duke stole the ball on four consecutive Lady Demon possessions, causing Dobin to throw the ball away on the fifth attempt.
"It was pretty difficult: all I saw were numbers on jerseys- I didn't even see faces," Dobin said. "I guess I wasn't as prepared as I thought I'd be."
After the Blue Devils leapt out to a 51-23 halftime lead, the game was never in doubt. The most excitement from the crowd of 6,504 came when reserve Dana Morgan scored the 99th and 100th points on a late-game layup.
The Blue Devils will next face No. 9 Marquette, which beat eighth-seeded Old Dominion 67-64.
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