Joanne P. McCallie to coach against daughter when Duke women's basketball hosts Elon Thursday

For a college basketball coach, preparing for any game requires gaining a deep understanding of the opponent.

For Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie, that task should be a little bit easier this week.

The Blue Devils will host Elon Thursday at 7 p.m. at Cameron Indoor Stadium after knocking off then-No. 3 South Carolina Sunday in a game that figures to be among the team's most important wins this season. Redshirt junior guard Rebecca Greenwell had 29 points, tied for the most against a top-three opponent in program history as the Blue Devils earned their highest victory against a ranked opponent since beating Ohio State in 2009.

But there is an even more intriguing storyline leading up to Thursday's game. McCallie's daughter, Maddie, is a senior guard in her second season with the Phoenix after transferring from Miami (Ohio) and sitting out the 2014-15 season because of NCAA transfer rules. For the two McCallie women, it will be the first time they face each other as opponents.

"I've always known the game was on the schedule, but it always seemed so far off," Joanne McCallie told GoDuke.com. "Well, now it's here."

The younger McCallie has been a constant presence in the Elon rotation despite seeing less time on the floor so far this season than she did last year, when she started 25 of the team’s 31 games. The senior guard has appeared in all seven games thus far for the Phoenix (4-3), averaging 0.4 points and 1.3 rebounds in 13.6 minutes per game.

"They have five seniors this year and are a terrific team," Joanne McCallie said. "She's really proud of her team. She was a starter last year and comes off the bench now. I'm really proud of her."

It is not uncommon to see children of coaches end up playing for their parents in college, but to play against one another is relatively rare. 

Duke hopes to continue its success defending the perimeter after holding the Gamecocks to 26.1 percent from beyond the arc with its matchup zone. However, the Blue Devils will have to avoid getting complacent coming off their statement win.

“You’ve got to be able to extend, and attack, on the excellent shooters. The challenge with Elon is that they’ve got shooters but they really like to penetrate too,” McCallie said. “We’ve got to extend the attack on [Brown, junior forward Meme Garner and Graves], but at the same time, we’ve got to play them off the bounce, because they’re very effective off the bounce as well.”

For the Blue Devils, the in-state tilt represents their last chance to clean up their play before beginning a tough stretch against Villanova, No. 15 Kentucky and No. 8 Louisville after taking a week off from exams. 

Although they scored more points in the paint against South Carolina, the Blue Devils were outrebounded 33-30 and gave up 16 offensive rebounds to the Gamecocks, leading to 14 second-chance points. 

Duke has improved many of its problems with turnovers that plagued the team in the past, averaging 6.5 fewer turnovers per game than its opponents, but still gave up 18 points off turnovers Sunday and nine points in transition.

“We are just working on limiting opponents to one bad shot and working on that,” McCallie said. “In practice we had a lot of work in transition defense, and we had a lot of work in boxing out because we’ve got to do a better job there.”

And although the game is a mother-daughter matchup coming on the heels of one of the biggest regular-season wins in recent program history, the elder McCallie stressed that once the game begins, it will be business as usual.

“The opponent somewhat needs to be irrelevant. The opponent needs to be like a bunch of dominos—they’re all the same,” McCallie said. “They all count the same. No different. For us, hopefully we’ll play for each other and get better.”