The No. 1 seed Duke Lady Blue Devils ended their regular season with a loss and won just one game in the ACC tournament, sparking speculation of a late-season slump.
But LSU coach Pokey Chatman said the losses do not fool her.
“I think it’s so funny when everyone talked about Duke struggling at the end of the year because they lost two of three,” Chatman said. “[They lost] one to Maryland and one to North Carolina. That’s not a struggle.”
In an ACC-flavored Final Four, LSU begins its run Sunday for a national title against Duke at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
Duke senior forward Monique Currie leads the nation’s highest-scoring team by averaging 16.3 points per game.
But senior guard Seimone Augustus said the Lady Tigers know what to expect from Duke since LSU defeated them in the 2005 Elite 8.
“At least we’re playing somebody and we know what to expect,” Augustus said. “We know that Monique is going to get her points.”
But LSU coach Pokey Chatman said playing Duke in 2005 is not an actual advantage for her team.
In last season’s tournament, LSU held Duke to 25.9 percent shooting in the second half and held Currie to 11 points on 4-of-18 shooting.
“It’s going to take more effort than we put out last year because they’re better,” Chatman said. “It’s going to take more effort than we put last time out because they’re deeper in a lot of positions.”
Duke coach Gail Goestenkors usually plays eight players per game including 6-foot-5-inch center Chante Black.
“It’s one of those things where Gail will go to the bench and you don’t know it because there is no drop off,” Chatman said. “They just find a different way to attack you when they go to different people.”
The tallest player on Duke’s team is 6-foot-7-inch junior center Alison Bales.
Bales is averaging 8.8 points per game and 6.6 rebounds per game.
To counter Duke’s size, Chatman said the Lady Tigers will need more than defense to slow Duke.
“We can throw our team defense at them and make them work for everything on both ends of the floor,” Chatman said. “Though it’s a matter of us locking in offensively, executing and making them defend us because we can’t throw 6 foot 7 inches, 6 foot 5 inches and 6 foot 3 inches at them.”
Besides Duke’s inside presence, junior guard Lindsey Harding rejoined the team this season after she was suspended for the 2004-2005 season.
“You think about the remarkable job Gail did last year, and they didn’t have their point guard,” Chatman said. “People forget that they just want to attach the name [Duke] and think you can just show up and get it done.”
Harding is averaging 10.5 points per game and leads the team with 150 assists this season.
Augustus threw strategies and plans aside before the team left Thursday and simplified LSU’s approach to Sunday’s game.
“We haven’t played our best basketball yet,” Augustus said. “I don’t see why we can’t defeat Duke and go on to the next round. More importantly, it’s that next step to get to that national championship game.”
 
Contact Kyle Whitfield at [email protected]