Owls not feeling pressure

"I think it's going to be a great game," said Duke coach Gail Goestenkors. "[Temple] has tremendous players, inside and at the perimeter as well."

That's the good news for the 25-7 Owls.

The bad news comes in the history books, which is drenched in Blue Devil blue.

When eighth-seeded Temple takes the court at the RBC Center at 5 p.m. (ESPN2) for just its third second-round NCAA appearance in school history, it will face a Duke team that is a No. 1 regional seed for the sixth time in the past 7 years and has posted 21 consecutive NCAA Tournament victories in its home state.

The Blue Devils, who started the season 30-0 before falling to North Carolina State in the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament semifinals, have also beaten 34 straight nonconference opponents. (Duke lost to ACC foe Maryland in last year's national championship game.) Duke comes battle-tested, dominating a conference that features three of the NCAA Tournament's top eight seeded teams. If that's not enough, the Devils are 3-0 all-time against No. 8 seeds.

Temple, under coach Dawn Staley, has just started to post enough success to be mentioned as a consistent NCAA threat. The Owls are making their first at-large appearance in the tournament and fourth consecutive appearance.

It's enough to make a coach break out the no-pressure quote playbook, as Staley did yesterday: "We're the ones that are probably going to play a little bit looser. The pressure is all on them. Our kids are going to come out, and we're going to fight and scratch and claw to stay in the basketball game."

The Owls, who have never advanced to the third round of the NCAAs, hope they can present problems for a Duke lineup led by National Player of the Year candidate Lindsey Harding. Harding does a little bit of everything, averaging four assists, four rebounds, nearly two steals and 13.8 points per game.

The inside matchup between Duke's 6-7 senior center Allison Bales and Temple's 6-2 junior center Lady Comfort should provide intrigue.

Comfort didn't play in Temple's first matchup with a No. 1 team this season - a 77-66 loss to Maryland on Dec. 10.

"Lady Comfort looks like she is a very physical post player and really did a good job for them," said Bales, who averages more than four blocked shots per game. "It's a different look for us because they don't really look to shoot from outside, the three-pointers, very often."

"They present quite a lot inside with both their quickness and size," said Temple's Kamesha Hairston, the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year. "But I think we have something to match it and we have good post players as well."

Duke blew Holy Cross away Sunday night, 81-44, on the strength of an amazing start by sophomore guard Abby Waner, who hit six three-pointers en route to 20 first-half points.

Tonight's game features two coaches who know each other very well from working together with USA Basketball.

Staley, in her seventh season as the Owls' head coach, played for the USA's gold-medal winning team with Goestenkors on the coaching staff in 2004. The two coached together for the USA Basketball National Team during the 2006 World Championships and will do the same at the 2008 Olympics.

"When you're in the war room trying to prepare, you see different things come out because you're there as a coach and not as a player," Staley said of Goestenkors. "She's got a great basketball mind."

And that has Staley, who uses some of the same sets those USA teams used with her Owls, kicking her strategical preparation into high gear.

"They [the Blue Devils] do take advantage of what their strengths are - inside and out," Staley said. "But with Gail, you never know . . . I'm quite sure she's going to be prepared for anything we throw at them." *