After losing a highly productive group of seniors since last season, the eighth-ranked Blue Devils will open a new-look chapter on Thursday night in their first exhibition against Pfeiffer at 7 p.m. at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie is optimistic about what her squad’s capabilites, refusing to dwell on the loss of her graduated players.
“It’s a brand new year, and we’re an evolving team,” McCallie said. “We respect what our players from last year’s team accomplished, but this is an evolutionary kind of deal. What last year’s team accomplished is in the past.”
For Pfeiffer, the exhibition is an opportunity for a smaller, Division-II program to compete in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
“We’re treating it like any other game, but at the same time, it’s a special experience,” Pfeiffer head coach Jill Thomas said. “We’re excited about it. We’re ready to live the dream, because everyone’s heard of Duke basketball.”
Rebounding ability was obvious on last year’s team, with Krystal Thomas and Karima Christmas combining to average nearly 15 rebounds per game. This year, a young frontcourt group will have to prove its mettle on the boards. The matchup with Pfeiffer, a team with just one player taller than 5-foot-11, may not provide a realistic portrayal of how the Blue Devils will fare on the glass against ACC opponents to come.
“There’s not going to be a person in the gym who doesn’t realize how tiny we are [compared to Duke],” said Pfeiffer head coach Jill Thomas. “If anything is going to stand out to everyone in the gym, it’s that.”
Duke will also need to evolve to fill the scoring void left by their graduated seniors, who, led by Jasmine Thomas’ 15.3 points per game, combined for over 40 percent of the team’s points last season. Much of the scoring load is likely to fall on the shoulders of sophomore Chelsea Gray, the team’s leading returning scorer, who averaged 8.7 points per game during her freshman campaign.
McCallie believes Thursday’s contest could provide insight into how the revamped Blue Devils, with just three upperclassmen on their roster, will shape up this season. But she emphasized that the inaugural exhibition is just one step in the process of forging a new identity.
“It’s hard to assess where we’re at right now,” she said. “We’re excited to find out what we can do on Thursday, and down the line. But you can’t expedite the process. We have to wait and see and do that slowly.”
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