RALEIGH - Holy Cross head coach Bill Gibbons had expected that his team's NCAA Tournament first round matchup Sunday with No. 1 Duke would be a blowout.
And it was.
Coming off its first loss of the season to N.C. State March 3 in the semi-finals of the ACC Tournament, the Blue Devils (31-1) showed no ill effects, defeating the Crusaders 81-44 in the RBC Center.
The Blue Devils never trailed Holy Cross (15-18), and an 11-0 Abby Waner run starting at the 14:35 mark of the first half gave Duke a 22-7 lead and essentially put the game out of reach for the Crusaders.
"I wasn't worried about overlooking anybody, because we know it's one and done," Duke head coach Gail Goestenkors said. "We know what happened to Ohio State [Saturday] as well. We have great respect for the Holy Cross program, and we were just anxious to play."
The fourth-seeded Buckeyes lost to Marist in their Tournament opener 67-63.
The Blue Devils, though, avoided a similar fate by turning 22 Crusader turnovers into 29 points. Duke benefitted from a balanced scoring attack, led by Waner's 26 points-20 of which came in the first half.
Carrem Gay and Joy Cheek added 10 points apiece, and Alison Bales chipped in with 13 points, eight rebounds and five blocks.
Before the Waner scoring run, Duke had started out slow offensively and played like a team that hadn't seen game action in 15 days.
"Once you don't play for almost two weeks, everything's a little bit rusty," Bales said. "Your passing's not as crisp, your defense isn't quite as perfect as you'd like it to be."
Duke's defense struggled initially, as Holy Cross freshman Bethany O'Dell torched the Blue Devils for 13 points in the first 12 minutes-including three three-pointers. At the next timeout, Goestenkors instructed Duke to pick up its play defensively.
Her team responded by only allowing five more points before halftime-none from O'Dell. Holy Cross, which had been shooting 47-percent from the field, was just 2-for-9 in the last eight minutes of the first period.
"We depend on our defense, and we rely on it and we take great pride in it," Goestenkors said. "So when a team is shooting 47-percent and they've got one player in particular who has 13 of the 17 points, you're not setting the tone. You're allowing other teams to lick their chops and say, 'Oh, Duke's defense isn't that good.'"
When it was clear the game had gotten out of reach, the big story became Holy Cross senior Brittany Keil-who entered the contest needing seven points to reach 1,000 for her career.
She went scoreless for the first 35 minutes of play. Gibbons had discussed the situation with Goestenkors before the game-he wanted his senior star to reach the benchmark, if at all possible. He told Goestenkors that if the game got out of hand, he would be leaving Keil in to try to reach her 1,000th point.
Duke switched to a zone, and Keil took advantage. She nailed two three-pointers and hit a free throw in the last five minutes to hit the milestone.
"I always had respect for Gail, but today it went like tenfold for what she did," Gibbons said. "I am rooting for Duke to win it all, because of the class Gail displayed."
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