Just a few weeks ago, the Blue Devils had opened up the season with 20 straight victories, and had yet to add a game to their loss column. They remained the only undefeated college basketball team in the nation. They had already taken down top squads like then-No. 7 Texas A&M and then-No. 4 Xavier.
Then right in the upswing of its confidence, Duke was embarrassed in a matchup against No. 2 Connecticut, 87-51. Merely one week later, the team lost a tantalizingly close contest to heated rival No. 12 North Carolina, 62-60. After dropping two games just seven days apart, the Blue Devils will look to change the focus of their team this weekend.
“Our team’s just got to change,” Jasmine Thomas said after the Tar Heel game. “I feel that you can’t keep coming out and saying your team’s not playing with enough heart, you’re not fighting enough. That’s something you shouldn’t have to coach, you shouldn’t have to demand from a team.”
Luckily for the Blue Devils, they will likely not face much of a challenge tonight as they travel to Wake Forest at 8:30 p.m.
The Demon Deacons (12-13, 3-6 in the ACC) have had an unsuccessful season to date, dropping all three games against ranked opponents by double-digit margins. Adding fuel to the fire, unranked teams have also unexpectedly embarrassed them throughout their schedule, like Virginia in a 27-point shellacking earlier this month, and N.C. State in a 21-point loss in January.
There does exist, though, the potential for the upset. Wake Forest is, after all, coming off its first road victory of the season, a 60-55 defeat of Virginia Tech.
The Demon Deacons’ only hope of defeating No. 5 Duke (21-2, 7-1) lies in their particularly powerful frontcourt, which contains sophomore forward Sandra Garcia and senior center Brittany Waters, the team’s two most potent offensive weapons.
The Wake Forest guards, on the other hand, will likely be no match for Thomas and her peers in Duke’s backcourt. Nor can the Demon Deacons rely on their defense for an upset win, which will likely have a difficult time containing a nationally-ranked Blue Devil offense that is averaging 70 points per game.
With Garcia and Waters, however, they remain a threat. The duo are the team’s two leading scorers: Waters is averaging 10.9 points per game, while Garcia is only a hair behind with 10.3. Not only do they account for a large portion of Wake Forest’s scoring, they also bear most of the rebounding responsibility, averaging 5.1 and 5.2 boards per game, respectively. In that crucial road contest against the Hokies, the duo combined for over one-third of the team’s total points and more than a quarter of the its rebounds.
The Blue Devils will have little time to rest as they host Boston College (17-7, 4-5) at Cameron Indoor Stadium at 2:00 p.m on Sunday. Although the Eagles rank one position above Wake Forest in the conference standings, they will likely pose a much more legitimate threat to the Blue Devils. They have stayed competitive in all of their games against ranked opponents, even defeating then-No. 13 Maryland in January.
Like Wake Forest, Boston College’s power lays within their frontcourt. Senior center Carolyn Swords leads the team in scoring and rebounding, averaging 17.7 points and 8.8 boards per game. She will be assisted by fellow senior, forward Stephanie Murphy, who is also a dominant force inside the paint. Murphy barely trails Swords in the major statistical categories, averaging 16.4 points and 8.3 rebounds per game.
Fortunately for the Blue Devils, they have their own talented arsenal below the basket. Senior center Krystal Thomas has been dominant inside the paint, as evidenced by her 11 rebounds earlier this week against North Carolina.
Although it might be easy to overlook their two unranked opponents, the Blue Devils will need these two wins to regain the confidence with which they began the season.
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