BOSTON – It just wouldn’t be appropriate if the Terrapin women’s basketball team were to win a national championship without beating Duke in the NCAA tournament.

Tonight the No. 2-seeded Terps will have to get past the dreaded No. 1-seeded Blue Devils to win that elusive prize every team sets its eyes on at the beginning of the season. But it’s not the Duke of old – the one that beat the Terps 14 straight times – that the Terps will be facing. Instead it’s one the Terps have taken down, as recently as a month ago to the day.

“In the past, obviously, I just think Duke was better,” junior guard Shay Doron said as teammates Laura Harper and Crystal Langhorne whipped their heads in Doron’s direction in disbelief. “And right now I think that it’s pretty even with the teams.”

But Doron was just stating the facts – Duke was better. Until the ACC tournament’s semifinals, they owned the Terps.

“The times we played Duke, I think we were tight and tense,” Harper said. “And it was just like ‘God, it’s Duke. Geez.’ But now we’re comfortable; it’s about us – not about the people we’re playing.”

Ever since coach Brenda Frese’s arrival in College Park, the Terps’ focus has been on taking down the goliath known as Duke. Last season at Midnight Madness, she even made a guarantee to the Comcast Center crowd that her team would beat Duke.

Just by being around the Terps (33-4), it’s quite evident their attitude has changed towards the Blue Devils (31-3). Duke is no longer a heavenly figure or a team that can’t be beaten.

The Terps aren’t afraid of Duke anymore; they talk about the Blue Devils with the same swagger they play with, and they are enjoying the spotlight of playing in the national championship game.

It’s no longer scary seeing Duke on the schedule. Instead, the Terps have a different measure of confidence when the women from Durham, N.C., are mentioned.

“It was really tough playing Duke,” Langhorne said. “They constantly beat us. We finally got that win off and I think that mentality [and] that fear against Duke is just gone.”

Even the Duke players talked about giving the Terps more respect after the ACC tournament game.

“Well they’ve gotten it done,” Duke guard Monique Currie said of the Terps. “They won big games, they beat us, beat North Carolina, and here they are playing in the national championship. So they earned that right to walk around – proud and feeling accomplished.”

Tonight’s meeting between the two teams will be the fourth this season. Duke won the first two by double digits before the Terps finally broke through last month.

Both teams rank at the top of the list in points per game, but something the Blue Devils have a big depth advantage and eight players capable of taking over a game.

The first time the two teams met, at Comcast Center, Duke’s Chante Black scored 19 points, and later in the season at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Jessica Foley scored 12 points, including two back-breaking threes.

The Terps, on the other hand, aren’t big on depth. They run a seven-woman rotation and have received limited contributions from reserves Ashleigh Newman and Jade Perry as of late. In Sunday’s win over North Carolina, the Terps didn’t get a single point from their bench.

“You can never underestimate [Duke],” Frese said. “They’re so talented, so deep; they’re so experienced, and they have one goal at hand as well.”

That one goal ultimately comes down to one game – the Terps versus Duke. Although it’s not quite up to par with the Duke rivalry of the men’s basketball team on the campus, it’s still a heated one.

And it’s just the way the basketball gods would have it to decide a national champion.

Contact reporter Andrew Zuckerman at zuckermandbk@gmail.com.