COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- On the road against an ACC team that had been ranked in the preseason top 25, the Duke women's basketball team did nearly everything possible to lose.
Yet it still coasted to a 66-55 win over Maryland that was more lopsided than the score would indicate.
Despite turning the ball over 23 times--while only registering 16 assists and causing 15 Maryland turnovers--and having practically no offensive contributions by its post players, Duke still held a 64-45 advantage with 4:22 remaining.
Duke's offense looked stagnant, its defense half-hearted and its transition game sloppy.
"I'm very disappointed in our effort," Duke coach Gail Goestenkors said. "I'm very disappointed in our focus [and] our ability to adjust in the game."
After a lackadaisical start in which Duke seemed to be playing at half-speed, Krista Gingrich hit a three-pointer to give the Blue Devils their first lead, 13-11, with 13:26 remaining in the half. Alana Beard followed this basket with a few nice drives and post- ups, as she scored Duke's next 10 points. But lackadaisical soon became excruciating as Duke did not hit another field goal until the second half.
As poorly as Duke was playing, Maryland still could not take the lead or even tie the Blue Devils. Duke had enough talent to snooze the first half with a lead.
In the second half, Monique Currie and Vicki Krapohl each had spurts to stretch the lead, but Duke could never string together enough good plays to get a real run going. Just when Duke seemed to be on the verge of putting Maryland away, a Duke player would cut the wrong way and a pass would go sailing out of bounds, or a Blue Devil would get called for pushing off in the paint.
"We were just not running our offense like we normally do," said Krapohl, who finished with four assists and was the only Blue Devil not to commit a turnover. "We were really stagnant, and when one person stops cutting, then two people stop cutting, [and] half the team is standing. That carried over into making bad passes."
Although the players on the perimeter passed to phantoms and turned the ball over, the posts accomplished little inside. Iciss Tillis, who had a solid defensive game and pulled down 12 boards, managed just four points to five turnovers. Between Tillis, Currie, Wynter Whitley and Michele Matyasovsky, Duke's primary inside players picked up five offensive fouls in the second half alone.
Even though the Blue Devils were bumbling away many of their possessions, they still managed to grab a 19-point lead. Again, Duke tried to find a way to lose, this time by allowing 10 straight points. Nevertheless, the game never seemed in question, since any number of Duke players--most notably Beard--could have made the key plays to save the Blue Devils.
Good teams have bad games--especially when they play three games and make two road trips in seven days. But what was striking about Saturday's contest was that the Blue Devils played probably their worst game of the year, and still beat a middle-of-the pack ACC team in its home gym.
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