ACC Women’s Basketball Opens Season With Media Day

The Atlantic Coast Conference officially opened the women’s basketball season with its annual ACC Media Day in Greensboro, NC. Duke held it’s team media day last week and the highlights from it can be seen here. All 15 ACC teams will be represented by their head coaches and select players will also be in attendance. Duke Women’s basketball will be looking to rebound this season after losing five seniors that made up the 2010 #1 recruiting class, transfer Alexis Jones who is now enrolled at Bayor, and will only be returning one starter from last season. Despite the tumultuous offseason, here are a few high points for Duke from the conference media day:

• The ACC preseason polls were released at media day and, even with all of the departures from last season, Duke was still picked to finish 2nd in the conference behind Notre Dame and narrowly edging out Louisville in both the coaches and the Blue Ribbon Panel media polls. In the coaches poll, the Blue Devils received 196 points and 1 first place vote while Louisville garnered 194 points. The Blue Ribbon Panel gave Duke 733 points and one first place vote while Louisville had 724 points and 2 first place votes. Notre Dame was the runaway favorite to repeat as ACC champions in both polls with 835 points and 38 first place votes (coaches) and 223 points and 14 first place votes (media).
• Senior Elizabeth Williams also received ACC preseason honors, being named to the preseason All-ACC team. Williams has had an outstanding career with the Blue Devils, winning the NCAA National Freshman of the Year award for the 2011-2012 season. All three seasons she’s played at Duke so far, she has won the ACC Defensive Player of the Year, been voted on the All-ACC First Team, and been recognized as an AP All-American. She is the only starter returning from last season and has already made a huge impact in the Duke and ACC record books. Junior guard Jewel Lloyd from Notre Dame was projected to win the ACC player of the year.
• Duke also has many new faces on the team this year. Two new Blue Devil guards, freshman Sierra Calhoun and redshirt-freshman  Rebecca Greenwell, were voted on the ACC Newcomers Watch List by the coaches and the media. Both Calhoun and Greenwell were McDonald’s All-Americans for their senior year of high school, and will most likely play a big role for Duke this season because of the lack of depth at the guard position. Greenwell enrolled at Duke last season but sat out due to a knee injury and will make her debut for the Blue Devils this season. They are joined by freshmen Shakayla Thomas (Florida State), Mariya Moore (Louisville), and Brianna Turner (Notre Dame).

Duke will host its annual Blue & White scrimmage this Sunday, October 26 at 2:00 p.m. in Cameron Indoor Stadium with an autograph session by the players following the contest. The Blue Devils will host Limestone on October 30th and Armstrong State on November 2nd for two exhibition games and kick off the regular season at Alabama on November 16th.