In tonight's rematch, Duke women have to forget 36-point loss to UConn
IT WAS EASY to see that Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie was getting a little frustrated. She had just sat through a media session in which her players had been asked over and over about their horrendous, 36-point loss to Connecticut in January, and now, it was her turn.
IT WAS EASY to see that Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie was getting a little frustrated.
She had just sat through a media session in which her players had been asked over and over about their horrendous, 36-point loss to Connecticut in January, and now, it was her turn.
"I don't really have anything else to say about that," McCallie said of the 87-51 beatdown on Jan. 31. "We got thumped. We moved on and then beat the next team by 24. From there, we got better and better and better."
All of which is true.
And her clear desire to dismiss the subject might have ended the conversation, except for the fact the rematch with the Huskies is tonight at the Liacouras Center with a berth into NCAA Women's Final Four at stake.
The past can't stay in the past when it has such a direct connection to the present.
"There was no game there," McCallie continued. "We moved on from that point. At this point, it isn't really about any opponent.
"Isn't it about getting to [the Final Four]? I'm sure you have to be excited about the opportunity at the end."
Well, sure, but the team standing in your way is the two-time reigning NCAA champion, which, oh, by the way, handed your program its worst whipping since 1993.
How does a team, even one ranked sixth in the nation, with an impressive 32-3 record, reconcile something like that?
Do you try to ignore it?
"I mean, once you've played a team before, it's pretty impossible not to think about the first game at all and completely block it out," Duke senior guard Jasmine Thomas said.
Do you try to look for things you might have done right?
"We learned a lot from that game about who we are and what we can do to improve," Blue Devils freshman guard/forward Haley Peters said. "That is what we have been doing since that game, focusing on us."
Do you use it as motivation?
"I think any team that you have lost to, you want to play again," Thomas said. "It's very motivational to get another chance to play [Connecticut], and you just go in with the mindset that you get a chance to continue your season."
You certainly can't let it intimidate you - not if you want to have any chance of changing the results this time.
"We approach each game and focus mostly on what we are doing and what we can do better," Peters said. "I do not think we would be here if we didn't think we could win."
You kind of felt sorry for Duke.
On one hand, McCallie was absolutely right when she said that at some point, this is about two teams trying to get to the Final Four.
You could dance around the obvious. There is always a nice feature or some other vignette.
But honestly, there is no other story line leading into this game. It's impossible to look at a game like the one Connecticut and Duke played on Jan. 31 and not wonder how in the world can things change that much to alter the outcome of this rematch? How can the Duke players put that game out of their minds to the point at which they can focus completely on the task in front of them?
Perhaps they should take the advice of the most unlikely source of all - Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma.
"I think coaches get inside players' heads too much and screw them up," Auriemma said, referring to what he would say if he were in Duke's locker room. "I think sometimes they get the players thinking about things they shouldn't think about.
"I don't come up with stories. I don't come up with theories. I don't go looking for things to plan in there that's going to affect the way they play.
"If I were [McCallie], I would just tell them the truth: 'There is no way that Connecticut can play better than that night, and there is no way we [Duke] can play as bad as we did that night.'
"That's the truth, and what happens from there happens." *
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