Wake Forest Wake Forest/Duke Duke Women's College Basketball recap on ESPN

Georgia Schweitzer scored 27 points and hit key foul shots in overtime as the Blue Devils overcame a miserable start to beat Wake Forest 75-68 in the opening round of the ACC women's tournament.

"I know the freshmen were really nervous," said Duke coach Gail Goestenkors, who uses three first-year players in her rotation. "When we had our open practice here we were missing layups and had turnovers. We talked about that – the excitement of the tournament – but we want to feel like this is our home court.

"I felt like we were excited but no comfortable. Then, when Georgia missed her first couple of shots, they feed off of her so much, everybody saw that and they panicked a little bit. We have too much talent to panic."

The top-seeded and defending Atlantic Coast Conference champion Blue Devils (26-3) fell behind by 15 points against a team that had lost eight straight and trailed by nine at the half before being pushed into an extra period.

Wake Forest's Bianca Brown tied it up at 62-62 with a three-point play with 26.2 seconds left in regulation and Duke held the ball for one last shot. But freshman star Alana Beard lost the ball as she dribbled toward the basket as time expired to sent it into a five-minute overtime.

Duke trailed twice in the extra period, but two free throws by Schweitzer with 1:59 left put the Blue Devils ahead to stay at 69-68.

The all-conference senior then made three more from the line over the final 27.9 seconds and grabbed a key rebound and got a steal to help close out the Demon Deacons (11-17), scoring 25 of her points in the second half and overtime.

"I felt like I wanted the ball in my hands down the stretch," Schweitzer said. "I told them when we got a rebound – `Give me the ball.' I was confident and I was hitting my free throws. I wanted the game."

Duke now gets a day off and will play the winner of the Florida State-Virginia game Sunday.

Schweitzer finished 14-for-16 from the free-throw line, making six straight over the final 1:39 of regulation to keep Duke in it.

Olivia Dardy had a career-high 30 for Wake Forest, but the Demon Deacons turned it over 31 times.

"I think we underestimated her because she has never played really well against us," Goestenkors said.

Many of the Wake Forest players, huge underdogs in this game, were in tears when it ended.

"People were writing us off," Wake Forest coach Charlene Curtis said. "We knew we had made a lot of progress. We just hadn't been able to put 40 minutes together. Tonight we put 40 minutes together and we needed the other five."

The halftime comeback was the third best in ACC tourney history. Florida State overcame an 11-point halftime deficit to beat Maryland last year and Duke was down 20 against Virginia in 1995 and went on to win in overtime.

Top seeds had gone 19-0 all-time against No. 8 or No. 9 seeds heading into the game, but the Blue Devils came dangerously close to becoming the first casualty, falling behind big in the first half.

Duke could do nothing right in the opening 20 minutes, shooting 27 percent, going 6-for-13 from the foul line and turning it over 13 times.

The ACC's top shooting team went more than 4½ minutes without a basket to start the game and missed 13 of its first 16 shots as the Demon Deacons built a 23-8 lead 8:44 before the break.

At one point, Duke went eight minutes without a point.

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