It has been about seven months since Duke announced it was conducting an internal investigation of its women's basketball program.
In that time, the Blue Devils have had to deal with missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1994 and losing two of their top four scorers from last season after head coach Joanne P. McCallie remained following the month-long investigation.
Starting Friday, McCallie and her team have the chance to put those obstacles behind them.
Duke will open the season by traveling to Lynchburg, Va., to take on Liberty Friday at 6 p.m. at the Vines Center before returning home to host defending Ivy League champion Pennsylvania Sunday at 2 p.m. The Blue Devils dismantled Charleston by 83 points in their only exhibition Sunday, showcasing the up-tempo offense and pressure defense with guards Kyra Lambert, Lexie Brown and Rebecca Greenwell that Duke hopes will become staples in 2016-17.
“I really like the aggressiveness that we’ve played with,” McCallie said Wednesday. “We really stayed in the moment and we were very intense for 40 minutes, which is the sort of trend you want to set. I realize we played a lesser opponent, but the aggressiveness, the steals and the rebounding, all of that stuff is really important to us.”
The Blue Devils struggled with injuries to key players last season, including top scorer Azurá Stevens, who transferred to Connecticut this offseason. But other than sophomore Haley Gorecki, who is recovering from a setback during her recovery from a hip injury, this year's key players appear to be healthy entering the season.
With a trio of reliable guards leading the way, Duke hopes to avoid the turnover woes that largely defined the past two seasons—the Blue Devils were ranked 306th nationally with 18.5 a year ago before dealing with the offseason turmoil.
“We’re extremely motivated,” Greenwell said at ACC Media Day. “It was tough all the way around for everyone involved, but it’s definitely been a motivating factor for us. right once we found out that we weren’t in the tournament, we’ve been working toward it…. I think it will definitely show this season."
Duke will put its new-look offense to the test Friday against the Lady Flames, who finished second in the Big South last season. But Liberty will have to replace 90.6 percent of its scoring from last season and incorporate seven freshman—sophomore KK Barbour has the most career points on the roster with 65.
In addition to the freshmen, the Lady Flames brought in point guard Nene Johnson, a transfer from Eastern Florida State. A first-team Southern Conference selection, Johnson led her team in scoring last season and will lead a methodical offense for Liberty.
“They’re a very disciplined team, and they tend not to shoot it very quickly,” McCallie said. “They want to make you play 25 seconds of defense. The key with them will be to disrupt them on their home floor, get after them defensively, and make them uncomfortable and make them rush. Once we do that, they get out of their system.”
As they did in their exhibition, the Blue Devils will look to use their depth down low to dominate the offensive glass. Senior forward Oderah Chidom started alongside junior Erin Mathias, and it will be interesting to see whether McCallie sticks with Mathias ahead of senior Kendall Cooper and redshirt sophomore Lyneé Belton, who have also impressed this season.
Regardless of who starts down low, Duke's posts will have their hands full with a Pennsylvania team that hosted the Blue Devils to start the 2015-16 season and nearly pulled off the upset. The Quakers return all five starters from the team that won the Ivy League and hope to finish what they could not last year, when Duke used a late 14-0 run to prevail 57-50.
The Blue Devils will test their frontcourt depth against Pennsylvania center Sydney Stipanovich—the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year and first-team all-conference forward Michelle Nwokedi. The duo combined for 14 rebounds in last year’s matchup, and the Quakers took advantage of 24 turnovers to stay close until the very end—a fact Duke has not forgotten a year later.
Pennsylvania finished the season with a top-30 RPI and made the NCAA tournament as a No. 10 seed, bowing out in the first round to Washington.
““We played so poorly last year,” McCallie said. “We’d like to play a much better game all around. At the time, people didn’t didn’t realize how good Penn was.... They were very good last year, and are even better this year…. it’s going to be a very exciting, difficult game.”
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Managing Editor 2018-19, 2019-2020 Features & Investigations Editor
A member of the class of 2020 hailing from San Mateo, Calif., Ben is The Chronicle's Towerview Editor and Investigations Editor. Outside of the Chronicle, he is a public policy major working towards a journalism certificate, has interned at the Tampa Bay Times and NBC News and frequents Pitchforks.