Just days after its upset over No. 8 N.C. State, the 24th-ranked women's basketball team (12-5, 5-2 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) is hoping for more of the same as it faces two conference rivals in just three days.
The action begins tonight when 11th-ranked Virginia (13-3, 4-3) comes to Cameron for a 7 p.m. tip-off and continues on Sunday afternoon when the Blue Devils face No. 19 Clemson (14-3, 6-1) at 12:30 p.m.
For the Blue Devils, there is no place like home for this weekend's action to unfold. Duke is 7-1 in games played at Cameron. Its only home loss came on December 20 against UCLA.
"We love playing at home and take great pride in winning at home," Duke coach Gail Goestenkors said. "Our goal was to go at home undefeated. Unfortunately that didn't happen, but we still want to do well in all of our games and win all the remaining games we have at home."
Tonight's game marks the first time the Blue Devils will face the Cavaliers in the 1997-98 season. Goestenkors feels that Virginia is an even better team athletically than they were last season when they defeated Duke 86-56 at Cameron.
The Cavaliers' spark comes from junior center DeMya Walker and senior guard Mimi McKinney. Walker leads the ACC in blocked shots and is second in the nation with an average of 3.9 blocks per game. McKinney is coming into tonight's
"Mimi McKinney is very hard to block and defend," Goestenkors said. "We need to attack the boards if we want to control the game."
Sunday's contest marks the second time the Blue Devils and the Tigers will meet this season. Their first meeting occurred back on December 13 when an unranked Clemson shot over 50 percent to beat then-No. 14 Duke in the Blue Devils' first ACC game.
Just a little more than a month later, the roles are reversed for the rematch as Duke looks to upset a higher-ranked Clemson, who just upset the Tar Heels on January 2.
"In our first game against Clemson, we didn't play to our potential," junior center Michele VanGorp said. "We didn't hit our shots very well, and we had a lot of turnovers. We didn't take care of the ball. If we want to win this time, we need to focus and be careful with the ball."
Monday night's game against N.C. State was arguably the best the Blue Devils have played as a team this season. Without a doubt, Duke hopes to carry the same intensity into this weekend's matchups.
"Coach said to us in the beginning of the [N.C. State] game that if you play 20 minutes of good basketball, you're going to get blown out. If you play 30 minutes, it's going to be a close game. If you play 40 minutes of good basketball, you're going to blow them out," VanGorp said. "That's what we did. We played 40 minutes of good Duke basketball. It showed, and we hope it shows this weekend."
With Monday's win over N.C. State, Duke joins Virginia and Clemson in adding to the unpredictability of ACC play by upsetting higher-ranked teams.
"Our conference is pretty evenly matched, so much so that it doesn't even really matter what the teams are ranked," Goestenkors said. "On any given night you never know what will happen."
In this week's Associated Press poll, both the Cavaliers and Tigers made the biggest jump in the rankings, as both teams moved up four spots. This weekend's games hold the same potential for the Blue Devils. However, Duke prefers not to base its success solely on rankings that change from week to week.
"I don't really look at the polls," VanGorp said. "It's important somewhat in the NCAA for how they seed you, but that's not always the case. I think it's not so much wins and losses, but it helps to beat ranked teams and teams [ranked] higher than you.
"I'm not really concerned how far we're going to move up or down in the polls based on two games. They're going to say what they want to say, but we need to play to what we're capable of doing-not what they say we're capable of doing."
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