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The Daily Tar Heel

UNC women’s basketball falls to Duke after improving at the free-throw line

In each of the North Carolina women’s basketball team’s three straight losses prior to Sunday’s matchup with Duke, the Tar Heels were buried by their opponents’ precision from the charity stripe.

But this time, North Carolina couldn’t use poor free-throw shooting as its excuse.

For the first time in four games, North Carolina outshot its opponent at the line, but points from the stripe were not enough to end the Tar Heels’ losing streak. Despite going 73 percent, the Tar Heels fell to Duke 66-58.

UNC has struggled lately from the line — shooting 41 percent of their free throws against North Carolina State and 61 percent in Thursday’s loss to Georgia Tech. But Sunday, UNC looked like a different team when they shot from the line.

The Tar Heels hit 16-of-22 free throws — six percent better than the previous team average.

UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell said her team hasn’t practiced much since Thursday’s loss to Georgia Tech, and she seemed stumped as to what might have brought about the improvement.

“That’s a lot better than what we’ve been doing,” Hatchell said. “That might be something that they have been working on on their own, but we haven’t really practiced that.”

UNC led Duke 31-29 at halftime, following a half in which the Tar Heels shot 82 percent from the free-throw line and had three players shoot 2-for-2 from the stripe.

Prior to Sunday’s game, Krista Gross’ 57 percent mark was the lowest on the Tar Heels’ squad. But against the Blue Devils, the sophomore guard was a perfect 4-for-4. Two of those four came with just more than three minutes to play bringing the Tar Heels within eight points.

In the Blue Devils’ first matchup against UNC, Duke shot 50 percent from the free-throw line and missed multiple and-ones in the final minutes of the 62-60 loss. Even on its home court, Duke had trouble staying composed at the free-throw line.

Duke coach Joanne McCallie was surprised by her team’s poor percentage, particularly since the Blue Devils averaged 65 percent prior to Sunday’s matchup.

“I’m very confident in our team and shooters,” McCallie said. “I think that we rushed a little bit. I just saw people taking them a little quickly. The free-throw line is a great place to rest and take your time.”

In an extremely physical game from start to finish, UNC players racked up a total of 21 personal fouls, and Duke had two players each register four fouls.

The two teams combined for a total of 45 free-throw attempts, proof itself of the aggressive nature of the rivalry game. Duke center Krystal Thomas said she was prepared for the scrappiness, but the senior didn’t capitalize off UNC fouls. Thomas, who before Sunday averaged 58 percent free-throw shooting, went 1-for-6 from the line.

Though her team didn’t take full advantage of foul shooting, McCallie was pleased the Blue Devils had the opportunity to work on their skill.

“I love that we got the 23 attempts, and that’s the most important thing to me,” McCallie said. “I’m not worried about the other number. I think that will work its way out.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.

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