STORRS, Conn. — It was hyped as the biggest game of the season. It turned out to be the biggest loss the women’s basketball program has faced in over a decade.
In a game in which Connecticut dominated from the first minute, the No. 3 Blue Devils fell to the No. 2 Huskies 87-51 at Gampel Pavilion last night. The loss ended Duke’s undefeated season and the 36-point margin is Duke’s largest loss since a 1993 contest against Virginia. Connecticut (21-1), whose record 90-game winning streak ended at Stanford earlier this season, saw its four-year home winning streak stay intact.
“Connecticut came out punching, and we just completely stepped back or took the punches,” head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “We didn’t do anything to counter punch or anything to fight back early.”
From the very beginning, it was clear that Connecticut was playing on a different level than the Blue Devils (20-1). They jumped out to an early 11-0 lead, which they quickly extended to 23-2 by the 9:42 mark in the first half.
In the game’s opening minutes, Duke missed its first 12 shots until Shay Selby finally broke the ice with a lay-up five minutes into the game.
“We didn’t compete,” senior guard Jasmine Thomas said. “We dug ourselves in a hole and then didn’t fight hard enough and stay together to get out of it.”
Maya Moore single-handedly out-scored Duke in the first period of play 16-15, and her team racked up a commanding 41-15 halftime lead that they would never relinquish. Moore finished the game with 29 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.
“Everything is on Maya’s shoulders,” McCallie said. “She carries it well, she scores, she had nine rebounds. When you have a player of that magnitude, the effect is pure relaxation for others.”
The Huskies’ early charge was also led by sophomore Kelly Farris, who nailed two treys as a part of her team’s game-opening run. The guard ended up with 14 points off of 4-for-6 shooting from downtown. Connecticut dominated from the perimeter, shooting 50 percent from long range compared to the Blue Devils’ meager 23.5 percent.
The Huskies’ control was not limited to the perimeter, however. Freshman center Stefanie Dolson owned the paint, bullying Krystal Thomas and Allison Vernerey all night. Dolson finished with only eight points, but added 12 rebounds and two blocks. Connecticut out-rebounded Duke 49-28, and Dolson had more defensive rebounds than all of her opponents combined.
“Stefanie Dolson is getting a lot better by the day,” Huskies’ head coach Geno Auriemma said. “Stefanie was a high school kid, and then somewhere along the lines, she became a college player.”
Fortunately for the Blue Devils, the second half was far more competitive than the first. They even pulled within 18 points with 14:32 remaining, only to see Connecticut then respond with an 11-0 run that sealed off any hope of a Duke comeback.
“The way they played in the second half is more what I expected,” Auriemma said. “When we went into halftime, I told [associate head coach] Chris Dailey I’m not really comfortable with this [lead], because I’ve seen them come back from 20 down.”
The bright spots for Duke were scarce, with Jasmine Thomas leading the team as the only double-digit scorer with 13 points. She shot only 4-for-16 from the field, however. McCallie was adamant that the team can learn from the game despite its catastrophic nature.
“We’ll learn a ton from this, and it will be positive,” she said. “We will make it positive.”
This one game is a deviation from conference play for the Blue Devils, who now play eight consecutive conference games to finish out the regular season. Auriemma dismissed any notion that this loss precludes Duke from being considered elite, noting that they beat Texas A&M earlier in the season.
“If you’re going to be a championship team, you have to have great guard play, and they’ve got maybe the best point guard in the country,” he said. “I didn’t see anything tonight that would lead me to believe that on a neutral court in the NCAA Tournament, there’s anybody they can’t beat.”
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