By The Numbers

 

  

Four in a row. A fourth consecutive ACC Tournament championship for the men's basketball team. Four NCAA Tournament games in a row for the women, and a spot in the Final Four.

Three stellar freshmen in Daniel Ewing, Monique Currie, and Wynter Whitley. The third consecutive regular-season ACC championships for the women, along with a third straight tournament title. Three new banners waiting to be hung in Cameron--an ACC championship banner for both teams, a Final Four banner for the women.

Eight players on the women's team, after the December departure of two sophomores who wanted more court time. Those who stayed--Alana Beard, Monique Currie, Krista Gingrich, Vicki Krapohl, Michele Matyasovsky, Sheana Mosch, Iciss Tillis, and Wynter Whitley--showed strength, stamina, and determination as they won a record twenty-two games in a row before losing the last game of their season to Oklahoma, at the Final Four.

Some numbers seemed ever-changing. The number of Player of the Year honors for Jason Williams kept rising--the Naismith, AP, ESPN, and Chevrolet awards, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Oscar Robertson Trophy, a unanimous choice for first-team All-American--new ones falling his way each day at season's end.

Alana Beard's numbers piled up as well. A first-team AP All-American, she became only the third Blue Devil to be named a Kodak All-American (following Michele Van Gorp and Georgia Schweitzer), finding her name on the first-team list in just her second year of college. She was named Most Outstanding Player in the East Region, and her fifteen points in the effort against Oklahoma earned her the school's single-season scoring record with 694 total points.

The season didn't add up to a final Number One. But it did add up to records, success, experience, and high hopes. Krista Gingrich is the only senior on the women's team, which returns the rest of its stellar cast. Mike Dunleavy and Chris Duhon will share captain's duties next season, as Dahntay Jones and Daniel Ewing help set the pace for one of the most highly touted incoming recruiting classes in basketball history.

Two. Two of the best basketball programs in the country.

 

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