No. 4 Blue Devils halt the No. 1 Huskies' home winning streak at 69 with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer
By Associated Press
Published January 4, 2004
HARTFORD, Conn. - This time, Duke came all the way back.
Behind Alana Beard's 20 second-half points, No. 4 Duke rallied to beat top-ranked Connecticut 68-67 on Saturday - snapping a home winning streak of 69 games and preventing the Huskies from setting an NCAA record.
UConn's last home loss 72-71 on Feb. 2, 2000.
"We got outplayed for basically the first 35 minutes of the game," Duke coach Gail Goestenkors said. "Coming back against a great team like Connecticut is something very difficult to do."
Jessica Foley's 3-pointer at the buzzer was the winner and capped an 18-3 rally over the final four minutes. The Huskies (9-1) led by as much as 20 in the first half, but wilted under Duke's fullcourt pressure, turning over the ball repeatedly in the closing minutes. Duke outscored UConn 50-32 in the second half.
The game was nearly similar to last year's UConn's 77-65 win over Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. In that game, the Blue Devils (10-1) outscored UConn 30-11 in the second half but fell short. Goestenkors' squad wasn't about to let it happen again.
"Last year, they were just happy to make a comeback," she said. "This year, that wasn't the case."
Foley was mobbed by her teammates as she lay on the floor after the shot, and the sellout crowd of 16,294 stood stunned.
"This is just amazing," Foley said. "I don't think I'll ever have a shot like that again in my career. I didn't even feel like I was in my body. It's the sort of thing you dream about."
Down by 14 in the final four minutes, the Blue Devils put on a furious press and turned UConn over seven times down the stretch, outscoring the Huskies 18-3 the rest of the way.
Beard finished with five of Duke's 12 steals. She had all but one of her points in the second half and had 11 in the final four minutes. Beard said she didn't let her 0-for-7 shooting performance in the first half bother her.
"I knew it was going to be a different story in the second half," she said. "I'm a shooter and I'm going to continue to shoot."
Diana Taurasi, who led UConn with 16 points, hit a running jumper over Beard with 4.7 seconds left to give UConn a 67-65 lead.
