EAST LANSING, Mich. - They walked off the court for the last time as a sea of green rushed on and as thousands cheered wildly from the stands.
The final season for Abby Waner, Chante Black and Carrem Gay wasn't supposed to end like this-not in front of a Michigan State home crowd, with the Blue Devils becoming the first No. 1 seed to fall in the NCAA Tournament and only the second top seed in history to fall in the second round.
But in the former stomping grounds of Earvin Johnson, there was no magic that could help No. 1 Duke, which saw its season end with a 63-49 loss to the No. 9 Spartans Tuesday in the Breslin Center.
The Blue Devils (27-6) saw a 46-46 tie evaporate over the last seven minutes. Michigan State (22-10) scored 17 of the last 20 points in the game, a stretch in which the Blue Devils did not make a field goal.
"We just tried to get a few stops [at the end]," head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "We were taking all these ridiculous threes when we just needed to score. We didn't have poise at that point and time, and that's not a good thing to lose, especially if you're in a hostile environment."
It certainly was a hostile environment-the Blue Devils looked rattled from the start, and found themselves trailing 25-20 at halftime.
They came out of the locker room rolling, though. A Black layup cut the lead to three, and a Waner 3-pointer tied it all up. Both teams traded basket after basket for the next five minutes-a reverse layup from Jasmine Thomas was followed by a shot in the paint by Lauren Aitch, a jumper from Allyssa DeHaan came with a 3-pointer from Karima Christmas.
Thomas and Christmas would be the lone bright spots for Duke on the offensive end-. Thomas finished with 14 points, Christmas with 13 points and 13 boards.
"We were known for defensive pressure and making people turn it over," Gay said. "We were known for executing and knocking down shots, and that's what you saw [after halftime]. If we had played that way the whole time, it would have been a different outcome."
But the Blue Devils simply couldn't execute and knock down their shots. They finished the game 18-for-67 from the floor, good for a 26.9 percent clip, the lowest field goal percentage of the year. And their 49 points were easily the least they've scored all year.
It may be easy to blame the loss on Duke playing what amounted to a road game, but McCallie insisted that it wasn't true.
"I'm sure it helped in some way, but the reality is, we didn't play very well today," said the head coach, who lost in her first game against her former squad. "We played very poorly, and when the team plays poorly, you have to credit the other team for doing some things better."
Two Spartans who certainly did things better were Johnson and Aitch. Johnson finished with 17 points, including two straight running layups at the end of the game that were essentially what put Duke away. Aitch had 15, but perhaps more importantly, held Black to only four points on 2-of-7 shooting.
"Lauren and Mia were the difference in the game," McCallie said. "They made plays, and when they weren't making plays, they were keeping us from getting the rebound."
Waner never did reach the goal of four national championships that she set out to achieve when she arrived at Duke. Along the way, she and her fellow seniors faced a coaching change, a heartbreaking loss in a national championship game and, now, perhaps the most stunning turn of all: an unexpected loss early in the Tournament in the year they were positioned to make one last run to the Final Four.
Instead of celebrating by cutting down the nets in St. Louis, the Blue Devils found themselves choking back tears in the locker room. The sight was all too familiar for everyone involved.
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