NEW YORK - With 12.1 seconds remaining in Saturday's game against Pittsburgh, Duke found itself in a familiar situation-a rough, ugly game that came down to the wire. But luckily for the Blue Devils, forward Joy Cheek stepped up to bail her team out.
With 1.2 seconds left in the game, Cheek outfought two Panthers for an offensive rebound and scored on a putback basket, breaking a 49-49 tie. Pittsburgh (6-3) failed to convert a desperation three-point attempt, and Cheek raised her arms in celebration as No. 17 Duke (7-3) sealed a 51-49 win over a feisty Panthers team in the Maggie Dixon Classic at Madison Square Garden.
The 6-foot-1 Cheek had the big shot but also had one of her best games of the season, finishing with a team-high 16 points and seven rebounds. Still, she was surprised as anyone about the game's slow and sloppy pace--reflected by the 50 turnovers and 30 fouls split between the two teams.
"I thought there was going to be a lot of scoring in this game," Cheek said.
Instead, the Blue Devils got into a physical, ugly match that looked more like a backyard melee than a free-flowing shootout. Duke was unable to practice between Thursday's win over Rutgers and Saturday's contest, and for a while, it looked like its lack of practice time would cost them the game.
Although Cheek finished 7-of-12 from the field, the rest of the Blue Devils struggled to simply make a basket. Minus Cheek's numbers, Duke shot just 34 percent from the field and had a season-high 29 turnovers. Much of the offensive struggles were a result of a heavy Pittsburgh press that was successful in trapping the Blue Devils and forcing them into errant passes and easy steals.
Thanks to strong defense throughout the game, though, Duke still managed to put itself in position to win. Pittsburgh's offense shot a mere 30.5 percent, including 1-for-7 on three-pointers. Additionally, the Panthers suffered a 10:24-scoreless stretch in the middle of the game. But a late-game call in Duke's favor helped set the stage for Cheek's winner.
With under a minute left, the Panthers' Jania Sims drove to the basket and drew the perimeter defense in. The collapsing defense allowed Sims to kick the ball out to Salvonte Zellous, but the Pittsburgh guard missed the open three.
After a failed putback attempt, players from both teams scrambled to corral the loose ball, which eventually bounced out of bounds. Although it looked like a Blue Devil player had touched it last, the referees awarded the ball to Duke with 12.1 seconds remaining. From there, all the Blue Devils had to do was run one play successfully. After both Duke and Pittsburgh called back-to-back timeouts, the Blue Devils did just that, breaking the Panthers' full-court press one more time for the win.
"I had a great day at work until the last 1.2 seconds," Pittsburgh head coach Agnus Berenato said. "We pressed, and we were very confident."
Duke averaged just 50 points in its past two contests after putting up 62.8 per game in the previous four. Part of the problem Saturday stemmed from its quick turnaround from Thursday's emotional victory over the Scarlet Knights.
"The lack of practice time absolutely killed us, and we have to practice more and need clearer thinking for our offense to speed up," head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "It was a blue-collar, more aggressive tempo."
On a day when so much seemed to go wrong for the Blue Devils and so many shots missed the bottom of the net, the team was pleased to have emerged with the victory-even if it ended up a little bit closer than most people expected.
"I love games that are close," McCallie said. "To me, this is what it's all about."
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