The Chronicle’s best wins bracket previously introduced some of Duke men’s basketball’s top moments throughout the years. This new series coincides with those moments, shedding light on some of Duke Athletics’ other highlights throughout the school’s storied history. We hope you enjoy this stroll down memory lane. Today's moment: Duke women’s basketball marks their place in history with an undefeated regular season.
As time expires on the final game of the 2006-07 regular season, there is pandemonium in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Duke women’s basketball has just won a thriller 67-62 against rival No. 4 North Carolina and finished the season 29-0. This made them the only ACC women's basketball team ever to end the regular season with a perfect record.
Under head coach Gail Goestenkors, the Blue Devils solidified their place in history as one of the most dominant teams ever. The team’s deadly trio of Abby Waner, Lindsey Harding and Alison Bales each posted double-digit points per game. Bales was a force on the interior, adding 7.8 rebounds per contest and 151 blocks, a whopping 130 more than the next highest on the team.
In Goestenkors' era of dominance as the head coach of Duke women’s basketball she came close to perfection only once before. In the 2002-03 season the team finished the regular season with only one loss. In 2007, she took home AP Coach of the Year honors to add to her trophy collection.
The season was full of spectacular moments and most of them involved Duke dominating its opponents. Twice the team surpassed 100 points in a game, but the road to perfection wasn’t always that easy. The Blue Devils barely escaped Tennessee 74-70 and of course, the final game against North Carolina came all the way down to the wire.
Unfortunately for this stellar Duke team, perfection only lasted so long. The Blue Devils fell in the ACC tournament to N.C. State, a team they beat by 14 earlier in the season. To cap off the year, they faced a crushing defeat to Rutgers in the NCAA tournament, losing to them by one point in the regional semifinals.
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