No Christmas for DePaul in loss to Duke

When Duke senior guard Karima Christmas was preparing to face DePaul's Keisha Hampton this week, she saw much of herself in the Blue Demons' junior star and leading scorer.

"I think we're similar players. We match up well. She's a great player. She can shoot, she can go low inside, and she plays multiple positions," Christmas said of Hampton. "I definitely wanted to go at her, be aggressive and just try to go into the lane and try to get her into foul trouble."

Getting Hampton into foul trouble was exactly what Christmas and the Blue Devils did in their 70-63, Sweet 16 win at Temple's Liacouras Center last night.

The Blue Devils forced Hampton, an Engineering & Science High grad, to pick up her fifth foul with more than 6 minutes remaining, and Christmas dropped in a game-high 23 points to get Duke the Philadelphia Regional semifinal victory.

"It was an excellent basketball game," Duke coach Joanne McCallie said. "There was a lot of quickness, a lot of rebounds, and a lot of hustle out there. I'm very proud of our team to outrebound and get after it a little on the boards and attack the lane as much as possible."

The Blue Devils outrebounded DePaul, 43-34, with nine of those boards coming courtesy of Christmas. Senior guard Jasmine Thomas added 19 points and four assists for the Blue Devils, and freshman guard Chelsea Gray came off the bench to add 16 points.

"Jasmine, with her consistency and always attacking and always being in attack mode, is so important to us," McCallie said. "Chelsea as well, attacking, not settling, but trying to get them to defend us as much as possible."

Duke jumped out to an early lead in the first half, leading by as many as 15 points. DePaul then cut the lead to 41-28 just before the half but seemed rattled by Duke's relentless pressure.

"There was no need for us to be in the mental place that we were early in the game," DePaul coach Doug Bruno said. "We just tried to do too much too fast, and everybody tried to make a home run themselves. Those are two very important keys tonight."

DePaul came out of halftime much stronger, hanging tough and eventually going on a 9-0 run triggered by a three-pointer from Hampton. Duke then fired back with a 6-0 run of its own to grab a 10-point lead with 4:45 remaining.

The Demons were far from finished, as senior Deirdre Naughton hit two free throws to cap a 6-0 run with 2:54 left. She kept the game tight down the stretch by hitting three of four shots from downtown, but DePaul simply could not stop the Dukies in the post.

"That's something we definitely harped on from the last game," Christmas said. "We wanted to come out in this game and attack from the inside first. If we had open shots, we could try to shoot them, but we wanted to go inside first."

Clutch perimeter play was not enough for DePaul as Gray eventually solidified the win for Duke by draining all four of her foul shots in the final seconds.

Shooting just 38.7 percent from the floor, Duke remained aggressive, swiping 11 steals and posting 40 points in the paint.

"It wasn't a perfect game," McCallie said. "Sometimes, it wasn't a pretty game, but it was a good game for us to be aggressive."

DePaul could not overcome the absence of Hampton, who played just 22 minutes because of the early foul trouble.

"It's huge," Bruno said of losing Hampton. "That's a part of her game that she's fixing, but she's still prone to committing fouls."

Duke advances to face defending national champ Connecticut in the Elite Eight here tomorrow night.

"I'm excited for the seniors that we have the opportunity to be in an Elite Eight, and compete to get into the Final Four," Thomas said. "We're excited for the opportunity, and we're going to take it for what it is."