Joanne P. McCallie is the most comfortable she has ever been at Duke, and her team, which is finally comfortable with her, appears poised to collect championships in the postseason.
"I think this team has done it for me," the third-year coach said. "They have made me make that transition. It's because of their willingness to go with me, their willingness to listen, their willingness to obsess about details. Get yelled at."
As they enter the ACC Women's Basketball Tournament this week, the top-seeded Blue Devils - from their bulky biceps to their tenacious full-court defense - resemble the physical, tough team McCallie often spoke about when she first arrived in Durham.
That was in April 2007, when she replaced beloved coach Gail Goestenkors, who took the coaching job at Texas after 15 seasons with the Devils. Goestenkors was 396-99 at Duke, with 13 NCAA Tournament appearances.
McCallie arrived from Michigan State, where she had made her name by guiding the Spartans to the 2005 Final Four. Still, her résumé did little to quell concerns during her first season at Duke.
She faced sharp criticism, with dissatisfied fans complaining about the team's plodding style, which they compared unfavorably to the running style coached by Goestenkors. There were worries about unhappy players. There were fears that the Devils would never win another ACC title or beat North Carolina. There were concerns that national recruits would go elsewhere.
"I got a lot of e-mails," Duke senior woman administrator Jacki Silar said. "I got a lot of phone calls."
Since then, however, those rumblings have seemed to fade as the Devils have continued to win - twice over the Tar Heels - and this season shared the regular-season conference championship with Florida State.
With a first-round bye, the ninth-ranked Devils (24-5, 12-2 ACC) await the winner of today's game between No. 8 seed North Carolina and No. 9 seed Maryland. They play at 3 p.m. on Friday
Familiarity finally
The Devils remain a powerhouse program with the nation's top recruiting class coming in next season.
Just as McCallie appears comfortable in her third season, players appear settled after a period of adjustment, having bought into to their coaches' defense-first philosophy. There are three players on the team recruited by McCallie.
"This is kind of like her group," Duke senior Joy Cheek said. "So I think that's what it was. [We] had to get used to her. She had to get to know us, and we had to learn her. Finally this year we're responding.
"We all have the same goal in mind. We want to be on her side. We want her to know we have her back, and we're trying to do the best we can to do whatever she wants us to do."
Winning championships seems to be everyone's goal on the team. After two consecutive losses in the ACC Tournament finals, the Devils are eager to capture their first tournament title since 2004.
Players speak about that pursuit in the same business-like monotone as their coach.
"That's definitely a reflection of her," Duke junior Jasmine Thomas said. "She always looks at it like that. I think that's growing with her and learning to take that attitude from her. ... You don't have anything else to focus on but one thing: That's this team and winning the next game."
McCallie talks often about how fans and players perceive basketball differently. Take, for example, how she views winning games in the NCAA Tournament: "Win two celebrate, win two celebrate, win two and go to the White House. That's how it works."
She doesn't talk in the language of regional finals or rivals. She's methodical about assigning every game the same meaning.
She can be brutal in her assessment of performance. Even Thomas, the team's leading scorer has caught a slam or two about her rebounding.
"It's direct," Thomas said. "You take it, and you go with it."
It's definitely a sign of forward progress that players say they know McCallie well enough to take criticism - even when they win by 30 points.
"You just think about that and laugh about it because you would never know that we won some games from our film sessions," Cheek said.
There wasn't as much laughter in McCallie's first year as players learned to cope with her sometimes intense style.
It's not often that a women's coach like Goestenkors, with such a successful program, leaves for another school. It was almost unbearable for players who had been in the program previously.
"It was one of the hardest things I've ever gone through because your world is kind of taken upside down," former Duke standout Abby Waner said. "I think everybody handled it in the best way that they could. I think everybody made mistakes. And everybody grew from it.
"I admire Coach P for stepping up to the challenge, but I think any coach in that position would have been challenged just as much as she was because we were already a top tier team."
Waner, now an ESPN analyst, said it's hard for a new coach to make a successful impact.
"It has to be a program that was down in order for it to be successful when a new coach comes in," she said. "We weren't down. So for a coach to come in in a transition year like that, for it to have been a complete success we had to have won the national championship. We didn't."
McCallie owns a 76-21 record at Duke.
Silar, who has been at the school for 30 years, said she thinks the program is headed in the right direction. She didn't have any doubts.
"Any time you get a new leader, people are like 'hmmm,' " she said. "They have to look at them 20 times. I'm talking fans and other folks.
"But ... it's not like we hired someone that hadn't proved themselves - that wasn't capable of taking a team, molding a team and advancing to almost the highest level."
Getting stronger
In McCallie's first season, the Devils finished third in the ACC and advanced to the NCAA regional semifinals before falling to Texas A&M. Last season, Duke again finished third during conference play and as the No. 1 seed was booted out of the second round of the tournament by Michigan State.
The Spartans, comprised of former McCallie recruits, muscled their way to victory.
Duke assistant Samantha Williams said the team's ability to accept that loss was the key to everyone making a complete transition.
"We got punched in the mouth," she said. "That was an opportunity for the team to look themselves in the mirror and face reality of what happen to us in that game."
McCallie said the team responded by hitting the weight room during the offseason, something she had stressed since Day 1.
"It's an ownership piece," McCallie said. "I've been teaching the same things year one, year two, year three. Don't get me wrong, I've added offenses. There's been change. But your principles guide you all the way through. It's up to the team to own it. They own it."
