Traditionally, Duke and North Carolina have dominated the ACC landscape in women's basketball. The two shades of blue have accounted for 14 regular-season titles and 15 conference tournament championships in the past 20 years, and have been fixtures in the NCAA tournament's second weekend.
But Sunday's 3 p.m. contest at Cameron Indoor Stadium pits two squads against each other that began the year with those same high expectations, but have been forced to adapt to the realities of their present conditions after a turbulent start to conference play.
For the first time since January 1992, the Blue Devils and Tar Heels will battle for Tobacco Road supremacy with neither squad ranked in the Associate Press women’s college basketball rankings. Led by sophomore forward Azurá Stevens—who registered a career-high 33 points in the Blue Devil 72-43 rout against Clemson Thursday evening—Duke appears to have righted the ship with two straight wins after a 1-3 start to ACC play, a turnaround that could be cemented with a win against North Carolina Sunday.
“I realize that it’s a rivalry game, people get excited, hopefully [despite of the weather] a lot of people can come out,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “The focus is squarely on us and what we want to accomplish. We maybe had too hard of a schedule considering the youth of our team [but] I think they’re learning how to play better together. It’s just taking [some time].”
Stevens’ standout performance Thursday came against an undersized Tiger lineup, but the sophomore will take on a more formidable opponent in the Tar Heels. The Raleigh native who has scored in double-figures in 34 consecutive games and enters Sunday’s matchup averaging 18.7 points and 9.3 rebounds per contest, and has victimized North Carolina in the past—a game-high 21-point outburst that propelled Duke to an 81-80 thriller in Durham last March.
That win served as one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the rivalry, with the Blue Devils (14-6, 3-3 in the ACC) erasing an enormous early deficit with a 34-8 run to climb back into the game and eek out a win.
Duke is allowing just 57.6 points per game this season, and Stevens has played a big role on the defensive end, leading the team in defensive rebounding and blocks with 104 and 45, respectively.
Despite only being a sophomore, Stevens is one of the veteran leaders for a squad that has tried to weave five freshmen guards into the mix while absorbing the loss of junior Kendall Cooper for the spring semester and a leave of absence by graduate student Amber Henson that lasted from late November into early January. All five freshmen have started at least one game for the Blue Devils—with point guards Kyra Lambert and Angela Salvadores the two most regular fixtures in the starting five among the newcomers—but have struggled with turnovers at times this season, necessitating a difference coaching approach by McCallie.
“You’re always adjusting as a coach, and with a younger roster it’s important to expose them to a championship level, but at the same time you have to jump off that plateau,” McCallie said. “It’s kind of a combination of going at the pace that the team demands.”
Salvadores leads the rookies with 8.3 points per contest, but has missed Duke’s last two games due to an ankle sprain. McCallie did not entirely rule Salvadores out for Sunday's game on a conference call with reporters Friday, but the Leon, Spain, native's availability seemed very much in doubt.
Like Duke, the Tar Heels (12-9, 2-4) have suffered through attrition of their own. Head coach Sylvia Hatchell's entire 2013 recruting class—Diamond DeShields, Allisha Gray, Stephanie Mavunga and Jessica Washington—is no longer with the program, with DeShields transferring to Tennessee, Gray to South Carolina, Mavunga to Ohio State and Washington to Kansas.
Senior forward Xylina McDaniel tore the ACL in her right knee Jan. 14 when North Carolina lost against Georgia Tech 80-73, leaving Hatchell's squad with only six healthy scholarship players.
Despite the losses, North Carolina opened ACC action by defeating Clemson 72-56 Jan. 3 and Syracuse 77-73 four days later. But since then, the Tar Heels have dropped four straight and fell out of the Associate Press rankings for the first time in 24 years.
The Tar Heel starting trio of Jamie Cherry, Destinee Walker and Stephanie Watts combines for 42.0 points per contest this season. The guards all ranked among the top 20 scorers in the ACC and will look to turn the Blue Devils’ 19.1 miscues per game into easy scoring opportunities in transition.
“They’re very talented, they’re definitely short in numbers but they’ve got five go-to players and we’ve got a lot of work to do,” McCallie said.
Ryan Hoerger contributed reporting.
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