No. 1 Blue Devils manhandle Michigan
(12/11/00 5:00am)
As fellow Duke students prepared for finals this weekend, the men's basketball team had a test of its own to take care of on the basketball court.
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As fellow Duke students prepared for finals this weekend, the men's basketball team had a test of its own to take care of on the basketball court.
GREENSBORO - Talk about a tough week.
Going into the season, few people were foolish enough to question Jason Williams' or Chris Duhon's playing ability.
The symptoms are familiar-a trace of homesickness, a little anxiety caused by an overwhelming work load, the sensation of being lost in the crowd or maybe just not fitting in.
One shot was all it took for David to slay Goliath in biblical times.
Don't be deceived by the final score in Maryland's 20-9 victory over Duke.
For a moment it seemed like dejá vu.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In a very physical game of a notoriously physical rivalry, moments of mental and physical brilliance from senior captains Robert Russell and Ali Curtis gave No. 8 Duke (4-2, 1-0 in the ACC) a 3-2 victory over No. 10 Clemson (3-2, 0-2 in the ACC) yesterday at Koskinen Stadium. The game featured 25 fouls and four yellow cards against Duke, the last one being a penalty on goalkeeper Jeff Haywood right outside the penalty box that allowed the Tigers to cut the lead to one with just six minutes left. Still, goals from Jordan Cila, Curtis, and Scott Noble gave Duke the margin they needed to extend its home win streak to 23 straight games. "It was a very physical game," coach John Rennie said. "We coulda, woulda, shoulda scored some more goals, but it was a great game and we worked very, very hard and I think deserved to win." Duke opened the scoring seven minutes into the game when Curtis was taken down just outside the 18-yard box. A huddle formed where the foul occurred between the three players who normally take penalty kicks-senior Russell, sophomore Trevor Perea and freshman Cila. "We know each others' strengths," the captain said. "Cila is great at touching the ball from just outside the 18 so we told him to take it.... His attitude is awesome, he's a workhorse in practice, so I have a tremendous amount of confidence in him." Sure enough, Cila was able to sneak the ball around and into the lower left corner. "The players on the field decide [who takes the kick] in terms of who's tired, who's confident," Rennie said. "You have to give credit to the seniors to let a freshman take that shot." Russell and the team showed more ingenuity at the start of the second half, when a halftime adjustment led to Noble's goal off a Russell corner kick. "At halftime we had noticed that [Clemson defender Oguchi Onyewu] was blocking our lanes," said Russell. "He was marking Noble, so we figured we'd have Noble make some near-post runs to clear up some space behind him." However, when it came time for the ploy to be used, Noble noticed that Onyewu was no longer covering him. With Onyewu out of the play, Russell reversed strategy and called for a far-post run from Noble, who put the cross into the back of the net with a powerful header. The successful corner came as no surprise to the Duke team. "Corners are our big strength," said Russell. "We have so many guys that are great in the air-Donald McIntosh, Curtis, Noble." Sandwiched between the Blue Devils' two set-play goals was an astounding play from Curtis, who scored his team-leading seventh goal of the season. Intercepting a back pass by Clemson, Curtis momentarily found himself racing one-on-one with goalkeeper Doug Warren. However, Curtis' progress was stopped by a Clemson defender hurrying back on the play and yanking the forward's shirt. "He was able to get a little bit of my jersey," said Curtis, "but fortunately I was able to get away from him and knock the ball in." But if it were that simple, the crowd wouldn't have been talking about the goal for the rest of the game. After disengaging his jersey from the defender's fist, Curtis put a series of moves on one Tiger, then Warren, and then a second Tiger before scoring. When asked about Ali's ability, Rennie was forced to chuckle. "I'll miss [Curtis] next year, that's for sure." Rennie wasn't smiling in the first half, though. Although up 2-1 at halftime, Rennie told his team that they needed to play with more intensity. "Clemson lost its first league game at home," he said, "so they're looking at being 0-2 in the league and they came out really hard. For a little while we didn't match that intensity, but in the second half we did." The fierceness of the match might have stemmed partly from the game the two teams played last year at Clemson, a scoreless draw that left everyone involved unhappy with the result. "Any ACC game is very physical, especially Clemson," Curtis said. "But last year we tied them so everyone felt they had a lot to prove."
Athletes are creatures of habit.
You will find one on just about every great team in sports.
For the remaining ACC teams scheduled to take on the second-ranked women's tennis team this season, their slim chances of upsetting Duke just went from bad to worse.
It's spreading.
With a No. 1 seed for the NCAA tournament all but locked up and the glow of an undefeated regular season still fresh on the minds of fans and players alike, one might wonder what Duke has left to prove to the rest of the league as it heads into the ACC tournament tonight in Charlotte.
On the heels of a regular season full of record-breaking firsts for the women's basketball team, the Blue Devils start the postseason today in Charlotte aiming for a first-ever ACC tournament championship.
Winning consistently at any level in sports is a challenge that teams constantly struggle with.
In a season in which the men's basketball team has been picked to win going into every contest with, perhaps, the exception of the Maryland game, the Blue Devils find themselves as-surprise-the team to beat going into tonight's matchup with North Carolina.
In college basketball, when you are picked to win your conference and ranked in the top five in most preseason polls, you become a target for other teams.
WINSTON-SALEM - On a night when Duke's leading scorer, Elton Brand, was limited to just 10 points by a stifling Wake Forest defense, it was the Blue Devils' backcourt tandem of Trajan Langdon and Will Avery that carried the scoring load for the team en route to an 82-72 victory over Wake Forest.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For one night Wednesday, Duke's now-famous journey turned into a journey to the free throw line. The one-two punch of Michele VanGorp and Krista Gingrich-who led all scorers with 22 points apiece-forced the Seminoles (2-3, 0-1 in the ACC) to turn from trading baskets to trading hand checks with the 16th-ranked Blue Devils (5-3, 1-0), leading to a parade to the charity stripe in the second half of a 91-72 Duke win in Cameron Indoor Stadium. "I love it when [the offense is] working in all facets," VanGorp said. "You can either choose to shut down me and Payton [Black] or you can choose to shut down Krista and [Hilary Howard] and Nicole [Erickson]. Either way, we're going to hurt you." VanGorp and Gingrich keyed an 18-2 Duke run midway through the first half that broke open a tight game. A putback by VanGorp ran the Blue Devils' lead to 31-14 with 7:24 left in the half. FSU responded with a 16-2 run of its own thanks to 13 points from leading scorer Latavia Coleman. But after the Seminoles closed to within four at 33-29, Duke's inside-outside combo struck again, running the lead to a comfortable 14 points at the half. The two teams combined for 24 personal fouls in the first half, but the whistles truly came fast and furious after the break. Six Florida State fouls in a span of 1:17 put the Blue Devils in the bonus quickly, and Seminoles starters Coleman, Brooke Wyckoff and April Traylor all fouled out of the game. Despite shooting just 61.3 percent from the line, 24 trips to the line in the second half alone provided plenty of free points for the Blue Devils. Duke also contributed to the erratic pace by turning the ball over 15 times in the last 20 minutes, a fact not lost on Goestenkors. "We have to learn to be a lot smarter," she said. "The way we ended the game, of course, I was not pleased with. So that's something we'll work on." Amidst the chaos, the Blue Devils led by as many as 34 before a mini-run by the FSU bench gave Duke its final margin of victory. The Seminoles, who entered the game at the bottom of the ACC in scoring defense and three-point shooting, suffered from some familiar problems, allowing Duke to shoot 52.5 percent from the floor and hitting only 4-of-19 from beyond the arc. FSU also found itself out-rebounded by the league's worst rebounding team, in large part because Wyckoff's one board fell far short of her ACC-best 10.8 per game average. If that weren't enough, coach Sue Semrau said her team's cause was also hurt by the tight officiating. "We're not used to it, and I don't think anybody is," she said after watching her team almost pick up as many fouls (26) as it had field goals made (28). "I think that all of us coaches are really trying to adjust, but when three of your starters foul out, when you have eight fouls with 14 minutes to go in the second half, it's difficult to adjust." Coleman led four Seminoles in double digits with 18 points while grabbing nine boards. Duke's Erickson churned out 15 points, six rebounds and six assists, and Peppi Browne led her team on the glass with nine rebounds. Now riding the wave of a four-game winning streak, the Blue Devils find themselves facing the biggest test a team can face: a date with superpower Tennessee at the Honda Elite Four Classic in Orlando. It's a foe Duke knows well-both VanGorp and Gingrich have played with Vols' players in the past-and the biggest measuring stick in a season that has already forced the Blue Devils to take inventory. "It's a tremendous opportunity; it's a tremendous challenge," Goestenkors said. "This team has responded very well to challenges. Sometimes we haven't enjoyed the outcome, but we've gotten better every game that we've played. I think this is the greatest challenge we can ask for, and I think we're very excited about the opportunity."
Highlight-reel material it was not.