As the Blue Devils were trying to make the most of their 12 days off between games—which matches their longest stretch of the year—they got a nice surprise on Selection Monday.
After being projected to earn a No. 3 seed for much of the season, Duke ended up earning a No. 2 seed, which on the surface would seem like a positive for head coach Joanne P. McCallie's team a year after it missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1994.
But that top-two seed came with a potential Sweet 16 matchup against a team that went 30-2 in the regular season and a possible Elite Eight game against the team that has won four national championships and 107 games in a row.
So coming off a 23-point loss to Notre Dame in the ACC tournament title game, the Blue Devils are still hard at work and not taking anything for granted.
Second-seeded Duke will open NCAA tournament play against No. 15 seed Hampton Saturday at 9 p.m. at Cameron Indoor Stadium. If the Blue Devils prevail, they will take on either seventh-seeded Temple or No. 10 seed Oregon Monday. After a strong ACC tournament that saw Duke add two more top-25 wins to bring its season total to eight, the Blue Devils are hoping to make a leap this postseason and are preparing for potential matchups against third-seeded Maryland and No. 1 overall seed Connecticut down the line.
And in response to its second-most lopsided loss of the year, Duke is hoping to keep getting better—especially in transition.
“One of the biggest takeaways for us is that we need to become faster defensively and transitioning back and stopping the ball, because Notre Dame simply moved faster,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “For the top four or five teams in the country, there’s a general speed issue.”
Although the Blue Devils (27-5) have one of the top scoring defenses in the nation, elite opponents have found success against Duke in transition before the Blue Devils can get set up. The Fighting Irish pushed the pace at every opportunity, finishing with 26 points off turnovers and 11 fast-break points.
Hampton (20-12) will likely be overmatched because of Duke's size, but the MEAC tournament champions will look to get leading scorer Malia Tate-DeFreitas, who averages 17.2 points per contest, loose in transition in Saturday's contest.
It is late in the season for the Blue Devils to make significant strides in clocked time, but McCallie hopes more than a full week of practice and recovery following some time off will help Duke start strong.
“It’s not that you’re going to get faster physically where someone’s going to take a second off their time down the floor, but by being in the championship, and being in that situation, the alertness to learning, you just can’t get it unless you get there,” McCallie said. “If you lose in the semis or earlier, you can’t get the feeling of the championship. Now, what will happen is they will be more able to understand what their totally full max effort is. We have time.”
Duke has also had time to reflect on its late-season 10-game winning streak fueled by Lexie Brown and Rebecca Greenwell and the Blue Devils' matchup zone defense. A close win against Miami and the game against Notre Dame also showed where Duke needs to improve offensively to give defenses different looks when they key on Brown, a first-team All-ACC performer.
The Blue Devils will look for more balance this week to keep their top scorers fresh—Duke will likely need them at their best to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2013.
“It was a very painful experience,” McCallie said of the winning streak coming to an end. “We’re frustrated because we don't want to lose to learn, but we’ve had to do that this season. There were a couple times. Ten straight games sometimes softens you up if you’re not mature enough. It can make you think that we’ve got it going and got it figured out. You always have to have that edge, and this loss definitely provides that edge.”
Before looking ahead to a possible Sweet 16 matchup against Brown's former team in Maryland, the Blue Devils will have to avoid an early-round upset. If Duke gets past Hampton, the Blue Devils will have to slow down Oregon (20-13) or Temple (24-7), both of whom have beaten top-20 opponents this season.
Brown is the only Duke player who has advanced past the Sweet 16—she played in the Final Four in both of her years with the Terrapins—and she will look to guide another team deep into March starting this weekend.
“Everything about Lexie is very helpful—and certainly her experience,” McCallie said. "She’s still learning though—she just had her first ACC tournament experience with this team. It’s a learning process for her, but that learning is accelerating very quickly for her, especially after that Notre Dame loss. Certainly, Final Four experience, anyone who has made that kind of run, if we can get in a position to make that kind of run, it would be even more helpful.”
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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.