With her team trailing by two points and less than 10 seconds showing on the clock in Cameron Indoor Stadium, Abby Waner took an inbounds pass under the basket, dribbled to mid-court and heaved a 40-footer as the buzzer sounded.
The ball clanged off the back rim. Game over.
There were no tears shed, no heavyhearted groans by the Cameron Crazies, no depictions of agony by the ESPN cameras. The only noise inside the gym was the sound of laughter by the other Blue Devils.
After all, this was just practice. Duke was still undefeated. And the fact that Waner's half-court prayer almost fell simply amused the players.
Although the Blue Devils have not yet been faced with such a pressure-packed situation in a live game this season, they have used drills in practice to simulate an end-of-game setting on a daily basis. The top-ranked Blue Devils are not worried about facing an unknown situation-precisely because they simulate those situations on a consistent basis.
"It gives you confidence," head coach Gail Goestenkors said. "Nothing can compare to being in that situation. You're not going to be able to simulate it perfectly. But when we are in those situations, we say, 'We've done this every single day in practice. So we're fine.' It gives you a level of confidence, even though it's not an exact simulation."
Despite the team's laughter over Waner's attempt, Goestenkors makes sure that the nature of the drills is serious. Before each potential water break, Goestenkors selects one player to shoot free throws, acting as if the team were in the single bonus.
If the player misses the front end of the one-and-one, the Blue Devils run the length of the court and back twice. If she makes the first shot but misses the second, only one lap is required of the players. If the player makes both shots, Duke gets a 30-second water break-the same length as a normal timeout that Goestenkors would call at the end of the game.
After that water break, Goestenkors usually sets up a late-game scenario. The specifics of the situation often vary-sometimes there are two minutes, sometimes two seconds.
"That's when I go to my team and look at the situation-I have to make the call," senior captain Lindsey Harding said. "I say, 'OK, we're going to be in this defense if they do that.' So we just run it from there."
Although Duke has never trailed in the last two minutes of a game this year, it has faced difficult second-half situations. In their Jan. 22 win at Tennessee, the Blue Devils saw their 21-point first half lead evaporate when the Lady Volunteers knotted the score at 48 with 10:48 remaining. They faced a similar situation Feb. 8, when North Carolina fought back from a halftime deficit to tie the game in the second half.
Both top-five foes had the potential to steal all the momentum-especially because they were playing in front of passionate, sold-out home crowds. One lead-changing basket could have sent the fans into a frenzy, easily tipping the outcome of the game. The Blue Devils, however, never let Tennessee or North Carolina get that lead, and they know exactly why they did not panic in the face of adversity.
"When we're in those types of games-like at Tennessee, when it got really tight at the end-we look at each other and say, 'We do this every single day in practice, let's just do it like we do in practice, get a good shot, knock it down and feel comfortable,'" Harding said. "We just remind ourselves, we do this every single day."
During their simulations in practice, the Blue Devils get a good look almost all the time, and someone makes that shot about half the time, Harding said.
Although the players admit that a late situation feels different in a real game than it does in practice, they also know that given their prowess on the court this season, drills are the only way to simulate the experience.
"It's easier to do it in practice than it is in a game, but I don't see us going down in a game just so we can practice it," Waner said.
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