Monday, March 29, 1999
Duke: A team for the ages?
Many see title as foregone conclusion
BY MIKE DeCOURCY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Most of the myths regarding the Duke Blue Devils have not required the services of media skeptics or Carolina fans or other such undesirables to be dispelled. Their own players and coaches do a sufficient job.
Invincible?
“We can be beaten, even if we play well,” said sophomore forward Shane Battier. “You never know what injuries are going to occur, how the officials are going to react and whether shots fall in or out.”
Inexhaustible?
“Whoever says we have two teams' worth of players did not pass math,” said coach Mike Krzyzewski. “We have nine scholarship players. Somehow, that does not work out. Our second team would not advance very far in
the NCAAs. I would bet against it, if I was not opposed to gambling.”
Intransigent?
Forward Chris Carrawell is from a difficult, inner-city background in St. Louis. Point guard William Avery was an academic disaster a year before completing high school. This is not just a suburban dream team any longer. “Without a doubt,” Avery said. “Times have changed now. I don't think they had some of the guys with backgrounds like some of us have.”
Inevitable?
This is the one only Connecticut can answer definitively. The Huskies (33-2) will challenge Duke (37-1) in the 1999 NCAA Tournament championship game today at 9:18 p.m. at Tropicana Field.
The outcome has been anticipated for months. The debate about the Blue Devils has concerned not whether they would win their third national title, but whether they deserved to be ranked among the greatest college basketball teams.
One very good reason that notion has persisted is the Devils' refusal to acknowledge the “unbeatable” questions even as they've answered them.
“You see a lot of stuff that we could beat NBA teams — that's all false,” Carrawell said. “We play every game like it's 0-0. We play that game. You don't look forward and you don't look back. “That's been important ... we haven't looked past anybody.”
This focus has kept the Devils improving even as they won all but four games in their 32-game winning streak by 10 or more points. The team that in November fell victim to Cincinnati has only truly flirted with defeat once since, in an overtime win against St. John's.
The Devils added power forward Shane Battier's three-point shooting, freshman forward Corey Maggette's offensive aggression and junior Nate James' heightened confidence to a team that looked fairly complete in taking apart Florida, Kentucky and Maryland in the first two months.
“Clearly, what they've done during the season — by not only the quantity of wins but the quality of wins and the way they've played — they were the most dominant team in college basketball probably in a number of years,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said.
“We've had a reasonably decent season ourselves. We have been brilliant at times. We have been pragmatic at times. We've survived at times ... But the game comes down to 40 minutes, not what some folks think it should be, could be, would be.”
The Duke program has flourished as the college environment changed this decade by recruiting players it might not keep for four years.
All nine of Duke's scholarship players attended the Nike All-American Camp in Indianap olis the summer before their senior year in high school.
Two Duke underclassmen had to respond to questions Sunday, the day before the most important game of their lives, about whether they would be concluding their college careers against UConn. Avery and center Elton Brand, the national player of the year, both are likely to enter the NBA draft after playing two seasons.
“They've got to do what's best for them,” Carrawell said. “I'd like to see them stick around another year, but I'd say take the money. You go to college to make money. And what degree pays a million dollars?”
What Krzyzewski's program can offer to the players it pursues has not changed, though. When he was in high school in Augusta, Ga., Avery often used the 5 a.m. start to his mother's work day as an excuse to oversleep and miss school. He repaired his grades at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia and was admitted to Duke.
“It's been everything and more that I thought it would be. Duke has made me an incredibly more responsible person,” Avery said. “I'm a guy who used to do things when I was ready, on my own time. You can't do that and expect to get by at Duke.
“This is not just a basketball team. It's the most together team I've ever been on. Regardless of what happens, it's been a great year — you know, a special season for us.”
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