final four supplement

The Chronicle’s

FINALFOUR PREVIEW

Greetings from Indy!

Inside:How the Blue Devils got

to Indianapolis, plus a

breakdown of Duke’s

Final Four rivals

2 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2010 The ChRonICLeDuke in the Final Four

Duke in the Final FourThe ChRonICLe FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2010 | 3

The Chronicle’s Final Four Preview

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5The Chronicle’s Stephen Allan revisits this se-nior class’s more mod-est beginning at Duke, and former sports edi-tor Brody Greenwald looks back on the 2001 national championship team he covered

Columnist Alex Fanaroff won’t bombard you with statistics today—just four simple reasons you should root for Duke in the Final Four

Defense will be the name of the game when the Blue Devils meet West Virginia (page 8), but this Duke squad is different—and notice-ably more mature—than the one that went down to the Mountain-eers in 2008 (page 10, center spread)

From starters in the early season to impact subs, the Plumlee broth-ers have embraced their changing roles

Seniors Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas aren’t flashy, but Duke’s season might have ended already if not for their timely contributions

West Virginia, Butler and Michigan State—the three teams join-ing Duke in the Final Four—have proven they belong in the national semifinals by winning on their own terms

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’Neers lean on Butler, defense for success

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West Virginia’s Da’Sean Butler gets his points with his sharp outside shot and his ability to drive to the hoop.

by Jason PalmataryTHE CHRONICLE

Ever since it pulled off an impressive run to beat Georgetown in the Big East Tournament final on a Da’Sean Butler jumper in the waning seconds of regu-lation, defensive-minded West Virginia been the popular pick to be the non-No. 1 seed capable of cutting down the nets in Indianapolis.

As the Mountaineers (31-6) prepare to en-ter Saturday night’s semifinal matchup with Duke, the only No. 1 seed still playing, they (31-6) have proven that they can win NCAA Tournament games in a variety of ways.

After cruising to an opening round win against overmatched Morgan State, West Virginia had to fight off a pesky Missouri team that dominated its Big East opposi-tion on the offensive boards. In the end, West Virginia had to rely on getting to the free throw line 33 times to pull out a single-digit win in a second round matchup.

In that game, Butler went 12-of-13 from the charity stripe en route to a team-high 28 points. As his team’s leading scorer in both the regular and postseason, the lanky swingman is a 3-point threat but is at his best when attacking the basket.

In the Sweet 16, the Mountaineers had to play from behind against Washington in what was their first game without injured point guard Darryl “Truck” Bryant. In Bry-ant’s absence, West Virginia depended on its defense, holding the Huskies to just 27 second half points.

“We’re not going to score a whole lot of points and our guys want to win, so I think they understand we’ve got to do a great job of guarding,” head coach Bub Huggins said. “Our length has some-thing to do with it. And I think in the last month, we’ve gotten a lot better.”

Whether they are in man-to-man or zone, the player that the coaching staff looks at as the quarterback of the defense is sophomore and leading rebounder Devin Ebanks. Ebanks, a 6-foot-9 forward, is a very talented player who battled a hand injury for much of the season and found even greater ways to contribute on the defensive end.

“We don’t like being scored on,” Ebanks said. “We try to limit everybody’s scoring and limit their touches. It’s fun knowing that you can shut the other person down.”

And in order to punch their ticket to the Final Four, the Mountaineers had to topple a talent-laden Kentucky squad. Again, West Virginia had a great effort on the defensive end, holding a Wildcat team full of offensive firepower and NBA talent to 34 percent shooting from the field and 12 percent shooting from deep. Still, it also took a bit of an offensive outburst from the Mountaineers that included 10-of-23 shoot-ing from downtown.

But perhaps the biggest story of the game was Joe Mazulla. The point guard stepped into the starting lineup for the first time in the Tournament, replacing the injured Bryant, and outplayed soon-

to-be No. 1 pick, John Wall.If Moutaineer fans are going to be

smiling Monday night, it is going to take a signature Huggins-coached team per-formance on the defensive end. In addi-tion to the trio of Butler, Ebanks, and Ma-zulla, forward Kevin Jones, a consistent double-digit scorer, will be relied on to

make plays. Still, it has been well docu-mented that West Virginia can win even when the shots aren’t falling.

“They can win when they are not making shots,” said Jay Wright, the head coach of conference rival Villanova. “They can cre-ate offense off their great defense. If they miss shots, they get offensive rebounds.”

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Scouting Butler Scouting Michigan State

Hometown Bulldogs hope for Indy glory

Without Lucas, Spartans still believe in title dreams

photo Courtesy of the state news

Senior Raymar Morgan, who averages 11.5 points and 6.2 rebounds pe game for the Spartans, has helped carry his team in Kalin Lucas’s absence.

by Caroline FairchildTHE CHRONICLE

Called everything from a Cinderella team to a legiti-mate contender for the national championship, Butler is a team of many titles. But for head coach Brad Ste-vens, names don’t mean anything.

“I don’t mind being called a Cinderella or a mid-major team,” Stevens said. “We don’t have the resources that other teams have, that’s a fact. But resources don’t play. You have five guys with heart and everything else, they play. I’m not too concerned about the other stuff.”

Coming from behind in the second half of all four tournament games thus far and trailing Murray State, Syracuse and Kansas State in the final five minutes, the No. 5 Bulldogs (32-4) have had their hearts tested throughout their entire NCAA Tournament run. Against No. 1 Syracuse, Butler controlled the pace of the game and harassed the Orangemen into 18 turnovers. In their Elite 8 matchup against No. 2 Kansas State, the Bulldogs made up for their lack of size and outrebounded their opponent by 12. Butler kept both foes to fewer than 60 points. This performance allowed the team to claim a spot on the floor this Saturday when it plays No. 5 Michi-gan State in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Despite facing improbable odds and tough situa-tions, freshman Andrew Smith said that his team has stayed calm throughout the Tournament.

“We didn’t get rattled,” Smith said. “We just stayed the course and played our game.”

Duke senior Brian Zoubek said that although he is solely focused on the Blue Devils’ upcoming game against No. 2 West Virginia, he doesn’t undervalue the Bulldogs’ place in the Final Four.

“What they have done is great,” Zoubek said. “They have some really talented players that didn’t get attention. They obviously have a chip on their shoulder because of that, and they are playing like it and playing great basketball.”

Indeed, the Bulldogs have surprised analysts and fans alike with their unlikely tournament run—but Butler is not the underdog in the traditional sense. The team has won 24 games in a row entering the contest against Michigan State and has made the Sweet 16 three times this decade. The Bulldogs are in the Tournament for the ninth time in

SEE butler ON pAGE 16

by Joe DrewsTHE CHRONICLE

If head coach Tom Izzo’s reign at Michigan State has been characterized by one maxim, it is this: Never count out the Spartans in March.

Never has that been clearer than this season.Michigan State (28-8) was already having a tough season

entering its second-round matchup with No. 4 Maryland. The Spartans, ranked No. 2 in the preseason, struggled with inconsistency and injuries all year, culminating in an overtime loss to Minnesota in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals.

Then star point guard Kalin Lucas, the hero of the fifth-

seeded Spartans’ first-round win over New Mexico State, landed awkwardly on his left leg after making a runner in the first half against the Terrapins. Lucas tore his Achilles tendon, and Michigan State was forced to continue with-out its leader in points, assists and minutes played.

To make matters worse, the Spartans were also dealing with injuries to Chris Allen and Delvon Roe, and Raymar Morgan had his tooth knocked out later in the Maryland game.

But Izzo and the Spartans, as they have done so often, found a way.

SEE michigan state ON pAGE 14


I was convinced when I left campus last May after my junior year that Duke had missed its best opportunity to make a Final Four.

Gerald Henderson had declared for the NBA and me-gastar recruit John Wall, who head coach Mike Krzyzewski

compared to Jason Williams, chose the Bluegrass State over the royal blue uniform. The Blue Devils would have no true point guard, no high-flying athlete and no dominant center.

But a funny thing happened along the way—this year’s senior trifecta of Jon Scheyer, Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas combined to form a sum

greater than the individual parts.Scheyer became one of the most efficient ball-

handlers in the country, ranking fifth in the NCAA in assist-to-turnover ratio with just 63 turnovers on the year. Zoubek learned not to commit silly

fouls, didn’t travel every time he got the ball in the post and snared rebounds with authority. Thomas mastered his role as a jack-of-all-trades, effectively defending every position and coming through with the clutch rebound or putback every so often.

Together, these three have merged with the rest of the Duke players to form a Final Four squad that is probably Krzyzewski’s least talented, at least NBA-wise, but has as good a chance as any to win the national title. You could list many good reasons why Duke could win—its under-rated offensive efficiency, its suffocating defense, the pedigree of the coaching staff—but in my view, as some-one who’s seen every peak and valley over the past four years, it’s because the seniors finally know how to create the lucky breaks instead of just hoping they happen.

As freshmen, this group experienced two four-game losing streaks, something that hadn’t happened in

Brody Greenwald was The Chronicle’s sports editor in 2001, and he covered both of Duke’s Final Four victories that season. Below, he recounts the 2001 Blue Devils’ run to the national championship, the program’s most recent title.

Just before tip-off of the 2001 Final Four at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minn., I asked John Feinstein, the author of the two best-selling sports books in history and a former Chronicle sports editor, to write a col-umn for a commemorative issue if, and when, Duke won the national championship. Feinstein stared at me incredulously. He then muttered something about jinxes and said, politely, that we could talk again after all the games were over.

Feinstein’s caution was justified. Although that Duke team had a roster full of NBA-caliber talent with Shane Battier, Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy, Carlos Boozer and Chris Duhon, and although that squad was the only in Duke history to win all of its NCAA Tournament games by double-digit margins, the Blue Devils had begun the month of March as significant underdogs to win an ACC champion-ship, let alone a national title. The ensuing championship run was so improbable and the team’s resilience so great that, in our year-end editorial, The Chronicle described the

2001 team as one “for all seasons,” and praised coach Mike Krzyzewski for his “best post-season coaching job in 10 years.”

Multiple injuries could have derailed the team. In late January, Williams reinjured his sprained ankle when he landed on a teammate in practice. Although the star point guard scored eight points in 13 seconds in the “miracle minute” win over Maryland in College park several days later, Duke lost three of its next nine games, including a rematch against Maryland in which Boozer fractured the third metatarsal in his right foot. With one game remaining before postseason play, most critics, including those with Duke ties, suggested the team was done. The Chronicle picked North Carolina to win the season-ending showdown at the Dean E. Smith Center, and Feinstein told a national TV audience that the Blue Devils would be lucky to reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. As Feinstein later recounted for The Chronicle in its NCAA Championship Commemorative Edition, he “didn’t see how a team that appeared to have no inside presence could get to the Final Four.”

After Boozer’s injury, Krzyzewski rotated three unheralded post players—Casey Sanders, Matt Christensen and Reggie Love—and replaced two-year starter Nate James with Duhon. With its new starting lineup, Duke blew out North Carolina twice in one week, first to claim a share of the regular season conference title and then in the ACC championship game.

The 2001 Blue Devils: A team for all seasons

My, how things have changed

ChroniCle file photo

Chris Duhon, Mike Dunleavy, Jay Williams and one unidentified player celebrate after Duke’s victory in the 2001 national championship game.

brody greenwaldguest column

StephenAllan

SEE senior class ON pAGE 15

SEE duke 2001 ON pAGE 15

DUKE IN THE FINAL FOURTHE CHRONICLE FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2010 | 7

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If you’re a real American, root for the Blue Devils

MICHAEL NACLERIO/THE CHRONICLE

Brian Zoubek has only recently become a key contributor to Duke’s unique team.

AlexFanaroff

In the national media’s (grossly oversimplified) Final Four narrative, every team has a storyline. Butler is the home-coming Cinderella; Michigan State’s Tom Izzo is the greatest Tournament coach of this or any generation; West Virginia’s Bob Huggins is the local boy returned home and made good. Duke, of course, is the big bad villain.

While grossly oversimplified story lines are fun, sometimes

they can be a little, um, oversim-plifying. Back when Christian Laettner went to four Final

Fours in four years, stomping on a chest or two along the way, Duke might have been a villain. But that was 18 years ago. When Laettner hit The Shot to beat Kentucky, Andre Dawkins was six months old. The world has changed a lot since then. Col-lege basketball has changed a lot since then.

There are plenty of good reasons to root for Duke. For anyone that loves the sport of college basketball, there isn’t a better team for which to cheer

in Indianapolis. So now, since it wouldn’t be a Final Four column without a gimmick involving the number four, I present the top four reasons why any college basketball fan should be rooting for Duke in the Final Four.

1. These guys are in school to learn. It probably says more about the state of the sport than it does about Duke’s likeability, but there isn’t a one-and-done to be found on Duke’s roster. Instead, among the players in Duke’s nine-man rotation, there are National Honor Society members, Math Olympians, class presidents, class salutatorians and National Merit Scholars. I may be old-fashioned, but that has to count for something.

2. Coach Mike Krzyzewski is literally an American hero. The game of basketball was invented in the United States. For dozens of years, the U.S. dominated international competitions. Then, the United States men’s basketball team lost two straight major international competitions involving NBA players. So who does USA Basketball call on to fix the program? Coach K.

Of course, Krzyzewski’s Re-deem Team won gold in Beijing. For a couple days, everyone was happy, then we forgot about it. But how was this not a bigger

deal? If this were England, Coach K would’ve been knighted. (Seri-ously, the last manager to guide England’s soccer team to a World Cup championship, Alf Ramsey, became Sir Alf Ramsey a short time later.) Instead, everyone continues to hate Coach K, and by extension, his Duke teams.

3. These guys appear to enjoy each other’s company. Whether it’s Lance Thomas designing personal-ized logos for each of the team’s seniors or the 27-part handshake that Dawkins and Nolan Smith manage to flawlessly execute prior to each game, you get the feeling that these Blue Devils are goofy, 20-something-year-old buddies who also happen to be some of the best basketball players in the coun-try. Other media accounts cor-roborate this: In a Dime Magazine feature, Smith, Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer traded good-natured barbs regarding each other’s bowl-ing games, and Singler revealed Smith’s habit of parking his car re-ally close to his teammates’ cars so that they have to crawl in through the passenger side.

And then there’s Nolan Smith’s Twitter account, perhaps the best evidence of the team’s human side. Actual quote from the day of Duke’s regional final

SEE FANAROFF ON PAGE 19

8 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2010 the chRonIcLeDuke in the Final Four

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Defensive matchups define national semifinalIf Singler guards WVU’s Butler, defensive responsibilities could mean a drop in offense

3-point shooting, physical rebounding key for Duke to dissect Mountaineers’ 1-3-1 zone

ChroniCle file photo

Duke’s Kyle Singler and West Virginia’s Da’Sean Butler will likely be matched up on defense Saturday.

by Archith RamkumarTHE CHRONICLE

While there was plenty of joy in the af-termath of Duke’s 78-71 victory over Bay-lor, allowing the Blue Devils to punch their ticket to the Final Four, there was also one small glimmer of concern.

For the first time in his career, Kyle Sin-gler did not make a field goal.

And while the junior forward’s 0-for-10 shooting day was offset in part by a phe-nomenal performance from Nolan Smith, conventional wisdom after the game was that Duke needs Singler’s offensive pro-duction to advance to the national cham-pionship game. After all, coming into last Sunday’s contest, Singler had shouldered the load for the Blue Devils down the stretch in ACC play and had averaged 21 points per game through the first three rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

When asked about his offensive strug-gles, Singler remained unfazed.

“Against Baylor, I couldn’t find a bucket and was struggling scoring the ball,” Sin-gler said. “But I just had the mindset of do-ing anything to help the team win. It’s not all about scoring.”

In fact, Singler’s defense in the Bay-lor game was a key component of Duke’s victory. Bears guard LaceDarius Dunn, who led his team with 22 points—but needed 18 shots to do it—admitted af-terward that Singler’s size and length bothered him. The end result was that while Singler’s production suffered on

the offensive end, he forced Dunn to work harder and harder, and it showed in the second half when Dunn went only 3-for-9 from the field.

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said that he thought Singler’s anxiety

SEE singler ON pAgE 18

by Jordan SiedellTHE CHRONICLE

After two weeks of Madness, the only thing standing between the Blue Devils and their first trip to the national title game since 2001 is West Virginia and its renowned 1-3-1 zone defense. More than anything else, how Duke attacks the Mountaineer zone will significantly impact who moves on from this mar-quee Final Four matchup.

Winning against solid zone defenses has proven to be one of Duke’s biggest challenges this season, but one that it has managed to overcome several times already. Against Miami in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament, the Blue Dev-ils had to deal with a tenacious defensive effort from the Hurricanes that kept the game close throughout, with Duke fi-nally pulling out a 77-74 win.

In the Baylor game Sunday, the Blue Devils again had to put up with a 2-3 zone that limited penetration into the paint. For the most part, that strategy kept the Duke offense centered around outside shooting and second-chance opportunities off of of-fensive rebounds, but the Blue Devils were able to exploit the zone and earn a physical Elite 8 win over the athletic Bears.

Like Baylor, West Virginia is stacked with players that are able to challenge opponents both on the ball and on the boards, resulting in one of the stingi-est defenses around. Throughout the course of this season, the Mountaineers

ian soileau/ChroniCle file photo

Jon Scheyer’s role in attacking a zone defense is to take care of the ball and hit perimeter jumpers.

have held opposing teams to only 63 points a game. Moreover, West Virginia is 27-0 when holding opponents to less than 69 points a game and 28-2 when holding the other team to under 50 percent shooting.

And although man-to-man may be used occasionally Saturday, Duke is preparing to

SEE zone defense ON pAgE 15

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10 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2010 Duke in the Final Four

The Road to the Final Four: The Chronicle takes you game-by-game through Duke’s route to the South Regional championship and to the Final Four in Indianapolis

Round of 64 Round of 32DUKE 68 - CAL 53

Jacksonville, Fla.

Duke’s size and ability to defend in the paint and on

the perimeter come in handy against the skilled Golden

Bears. Senior Brian Zoubek collects 14 rebounds and com-

mands the interior, while Nolan Smith shuts down Cali-fornia’s dynamic point guard, Jerome Randle, in a game the

Blue Devils led throughout.

DUKE 73 - ARPB 44Jacksonville, Fla.

Unlike other high seeds, no-tably No. 2 Villanova, the Blue

Devils make quick work of their overmatched opponent, play-in game winner Arkan-

sas-Pine Bluff. No Golden Lion scored in double-figures, and Kyle Singler led the way for

Duke with 22 points and 10 re-bounds as the Blue Devils led

by 19 at halftime.

by Joe DrewsTHE CHRONICLE

Duke is back. Back in the Final Four, back as a na-tional power—and back as a villain in the season’s final weekend.

Historically speaking, the idea of the Blue Devils as a Final Four villain is nothing new. Under head coach Mike Krzyzewski, Duke has been a national semifinalist 11 times, winning three championships. From Christian Laettner to J.J. Redick, Blue Devil players have been the target of championship weekend vitriol, the likes of which few other Division I athletes have experienced.

What is new, however, is Duke being cast as a bad guy in April once again. That’s not because college basket-ball fans around the country have warmed to the Blue Devils. Rather, Duke simply hasn’t advanced that far in the Tournament.

In 2004, the Blue Devils lost to Connecticut in a national semifinal. Since then, they have seen their nine-year Sweet 16 streak end. They narrowly escaped a loss to No. 15 Belmont. They were blown out by Vil-lanova. And all the while, they have endured questions about why they had not made the Final Four since Chris Duhon was in uniform.

But they never stopped being hated. Time, venue—none of it mattered. Fans, whether they were cheering for the opposing team or simply casual basketball followers, wanted to see Duke crash. And when the Blue Devils lost, all parties involved rejoiced.

Rarely, though, has a team delighted so much in beat-ing Duke as West Virginia did after the Mountaineers ended the Blue Devils’ season in 2008. No. 7 West Virgin-ia shocked No. 2 Duke in the second round of the NCAA Tournament that year, riding Joe Alexander and Alex Ruoff to a 73-67 upset as the Washington, D.C. crowd gleefully looked on.

Two years later, the Blue Devils and Mountaineers are set to meet again, this time with even more at stake: a spot in the national championship game.

A floor-slapping, ‘mini Jason Kidd’Over the years, one of the most iconic images of Duke’s

defense is the floor slap. From Steve Wojciechowski to greg paulus, Blue Devil players have used the gesture at crucial moments to signal their intensity as they get into their defensive stances.

So when West Virginia guard Joe Mazzulla, then a sophomore, entered his team’s NCAA Tournament game against Duke and immediately slapped both hands to the Verizon Center floor, it wasn’t a coinci-dence. It wasn’t a habit of his. And it wasn’t meant to be complimentary.

Alexander had dared Mazzulla to slap the floor during pregame warmups, and the reserve guard didn’t hesitate.

And yet he backed it up on the court. Mazzulla shred-ded the Blue Devils’ defense, and although he was not the Mountaineers’ leading scorer that day, he may have been their most important player.

“The MVp of the game was Mazzulla,” Krzyzewski said after the game. “That kid was fabulous. He looked like a mini Jason Kidd out there, getting rebounds and assists and points and toughness.”

The sophomore finished with a near triple-double: 13 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists. He also played with the fire that Duke lacked, and in that way represented the stark difference between the two teams that afternoon.

His mock floor slap, however, did not leave much of an impression on the Blue Devils.

“Once you lose, it doesn’t make any difference what a kid says,” Krzyzewski said this week. “You lost. That’s their right to do whatever they want to do and say whatever they want to.... That’s, to me, like, so long ago that it has no bearing on what we’re doing right now.”

‘We don’t care that they’re duke’Once the final buzzer had sounded on Duke’s season,

though, Mazzulla was far more complimentary of the Blue Devils than some of his teammates were. Fresh off a big NCAA Tournament win and tired of hearing about Duke’s tradition, the underdog Mountaineers were ready to go on the offensive.

During postgame interviews, then-freshman Cam Thor-oughman was informed that paulus was a McDonald’s All-American.

“Oh my god,” he responded. “Are you kidding?”“We don’t have any McDonald’s All-Americans, and we

don’t have any guys who were the No. 1 player in their state,” then-senior center Jamie Smalligan said. “But I think that Coach K would love to have Joe Alexander on his team right now.”

It was Alexander, in fact, who led the postgame assault on Duke. The forward, who scored 22 points and played almost the entire contest, took several shots at the Blue Devils.

“We don’t care that they’re Duke,” he said. “That doesn’t mean anything to us. people look at West Virginia like we’re this mid-major school playing all these big schools and upset-ting them. That’s not the case at all.”

“We knew that coming in—that they were just going to stand around and not rebound,” Alexander also said. “So we were ready to exploit that.”

And Alexander, like Thoroughman, was unimpressed with the Blue Devils’ bevy of McDonald’s All-Americans. A reporter told him Duke had eight such players on its roster.

His retort was a single word: “Who?”

Shown up in 2008, new crop of Blue Devils primed for NCAA title run

A reporter told West Virginia’s Joe Alexander that Duke had eight McDonald’s All-Americans on its

roster. His retort was a single word: “Who?”

ChroniCle file photos

In 2008, a cocky and confident West Virginia squad led by forward Joe Alexander (11, left) knocked Duke out of the NCAA Tournament and let the Blue Devils hear about it. This year’s Blue Devils, though, bear little resemblence to the 2008 edition.

10 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2010 the chRonIcLe | 11 Duke in the Final Four

The Road to the Final Four: The Chronicle takes you game-by-game through Duke’s route to the South Regional championship and to the Final Four in Indianapolis

DUKE 78 - BAY 71Houston, Texas

The Blue Devils survive an 0-for-10 shooting effort from Kyle Singler largely thanks to

a career performance from guard Nolan Smith. Smith scores 29 points, including a clutch 3-pointer off of his own missed free throw, to

lead Duke over a game Baylor squad and into its first Final

Four since 2004.

Sweet 16 elite 8DUKE 70 - PUR 57

Houston, Texas

The Boilermakers, missing their leading scorer due to

injury, were expected to bow out early, but provide Duke

with a tough test in the Sweet 16. Purdue stays right with the Blue Devils until late in

the game, when Kyle Singler’s outside shot and quality free-throw shooting put the gloss

on the scoreline.

Duke in the Final Four

• 1963: National semifianlist

• 1964: Lost to UCLA in national title game

• 1966: National semifinalist

• 1978: Lost to Kentucky in national title game

• 1986: Lost to Louisville in national title game



• 1990: Lost to UNLV in national title game

• 1991: Defeated UNLV for first national title

• 1992: Defeated Michigan for second national title

• 1994: Lost to Arkansas in national title game

• 1999: Lost to UConn in national title game

• 2001: Defeated Arizona for third national title


It was Alexander, in fact, who led the postgame assault on Duke. The forward, who scored 22 points and played almost the entire contest, took several shots at the Blue Devils.

“We don’t care that they’re Duke,” he said. “That doesn’t mean anything to us. people look at West Virginia like we’re this mid-major school playing all these big schools and upset-ting them. That’s not the case at all.”

“We knew that coming in—that they were just going to stand around and not rebound,” Alexander also said. “So we were ready to exploit that.”

And Alexander, like Thoroughman, was unimpressed with the Blue Devils’ bevy of McDonald’s All-Americans. A reporter told him Duke had eight such players on its roster.

His retort was a single word: “Who?”

Now preparing to face West Virginia for the first time since that 2008 loss, the Blue Devils say the Mountaineers’ comments don’t matter. A team playing in the Final Four, after all, does not need extra motivation.

“You ignore that, and you just really go out there and play basketball,” Nolan Smith said this week. “The thing you think about from that game is that they played tougher than us. They did a lot of tougher things than us on that night. And as players that played in that game, that’s all we’re going to remember, is that they wanted it and played harder than us.”

A different teamThe Blue Devils’ stance on West Virginia’s postgame

reactions is understandable. Many of the 2008 Mountain-eers, such as Alexander, have left the program. A few, like Thoroughman, remain. Others, such as senior Da’Sean Butler, have stepped into larger roles.

Duke, meanwhile, has undergone an evolution of its own. greg paulus and gerald Henderson, two of the three Blue Devils who scored double-digit points that day, are gone. So are DeMarcus Nelson, David McClure and Taylor King.

With them goes the old Duke: the Duke that got out-rebounded 47-27, the Duke that missed 15 consecutive 3-pointers, the Duke that had no chance of overcoming that kind of cold shooting.

In its place stands a taller Blue Devil team, with Brian Zoubek, Lance Thomas and Miles and Mason plumlee comprising one of the most effective frontcourts in the country. They have helped Duke become one of the na-tion’s leaders in offensive rebounding.

The Mountaineers dominated the 2008 Blue Devils on the boards. West Virginia remains a great rebound-ing team—it is second nationally in offensive rebounding percentage—but an advantage on the glass similar to two years ago would be shocking.

“That’s our plus this year,” Smith said. “We know that our defensive rebounding is going to be there. We’re not worried about that. That’s how they hurt us [in 2008], [so] it gives us a lot of confidence.”

Duke’s prowess on the offensive glass has been a big reason why it has not been victimized by poor perimeter shooting this season. Smith, Jon Scheyer and Kyle Singler struggle with their shot at times, but the forwards corral their misses and kick the ball back out to them for extra scoring opportunities.

Two years ago, those second and third chances were “the story of the game,” Krzyzewski said—for West Vir-ginia. The Mountaineers had 19 offensive rebounds to the Blue Devils’ seven. The contrast couldn’t have been greater: While Duke clanged individual attempts off the rim, West Virginia gathered its misses and converted.

Now, the Blue Devils have an answer for the Mountaineers.“When we have bad shooting nights, we definitely

have won games with our rebounding and our tough-ness,” Zoubek said. “I think that is the difference this year, that when we do have bad shooting nights and stuff isn’t going well for us, the simple things—they might not be simple—but rebounding, offensive rebounding,

Shown up in 2008, new crop of Blue Devils primed for NCAA title run

SEE West virginiA ON pAgE 19

A reporter told West Virginia’s Joe Alexander that Duke had eight McDonald’s All-Americans on its

roster. His retort was a single word: “Who?”

ChroniCle file photos

In 2008, a cocky and confident West Virginia squad led by forward Joe Alexander (11, left) knocked Duke out of the NCAA Tournament and let the Blue Devils hear about it. This year’s Blue Devils, though, bear little resemblence to the 2008 edition.


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Sophomore Miles Plumlee isn’t Duke’s top scorer, but his hustle and energy have made him an integral member of the Blue Devil front line.

the plumlees

Substitute brothers energize Duke

melissa yeo/ChroniCle file photo

Freshman Mason Plumlee’s wrist injury early in the year set back his prog-ress, but his dunking ability still sets him apart from Duke’s other bigs.

by Scott RichTHE CHRONICLE

Mason plumlee doesn’t try to hide the fact that he en-joys dunking. A lot.

You can see the gleam in his eyes when he spots an open lane and the exhilaration on his face while he flies through the air. You can hear the primal scream that erupts after his successful return to earth and the instinctive outpour-ing of energy and emotion it encompasses.

But he also realizes that the boost a highlight-reel dunk gives his team is not necessarily unique; in fact, there are many other less glamorous, but equally paramount, ways he can energize the Blue Devils off the bench.

“Big plays like that [create energy], but [head coach Mike Krzyzewski] always talks about coming off the bench with energy, even if it’s just talking on defense,” plumlee said. “I mean, obviously everybody wants to make a play

like that, and I think [I] have the ability to do that, so when we do, it’s great and it gives our team a lift. But there’s other ways—if you get a loose ball, that’s huge.”

And if Duke is to be successful in Indianapolis this weekend, that energy off the bench, both from Mason and his older brother Miles, could be critical.

It has admittedly taken some time for the plumlees to adjust to their new roles as sparkplugs off the bench, especially when they both expected to be in the start-ing lineup as the season opened. But an early wrist in-jury derailed the start of Mason’s career, and the emer-gence of Brian Zoubek late in the season sent Miles to the bench, as well.

“It was a struggle for me at first to find my role,” Mason said. “But now that I know where I am, I just have to make sure that when I come off the bench, I bring energy.”

Indeed, energy has come to epitomize the play of both Mason and Miles just as it does their senior mentors in Zoubek and Lance Thomas.

While neither plumlee is defined by his scoring abil-ity, thanks to the proficiency of Duke’s “Big Three,” the pair has proven to be consistent both on the glass and on the defensive end. Combined, they averaged more than eight rebounds a game on the season, while each accounts for nearly a block a game.

But as the calendar turned to March, the plumlees’ pro-duction truly began to match their effort and intangibles.

In Duke’s second-round matchup against California, for example, it was Miles’s acrobatic reverse alley-oop that spurred a decisive Blue Devil run. What’s more, in a bruising contest against a tall Baylor front line, the plumlees combined for six points and 12 rebounds in just 35 minutes of action.

It is the ability to bring two athletic, 6-foot-10 forwards like Miles and Mason off the bench that differentiates Duke from any other team in the Final Four. But beyond their individual production, having the plumlees as a safety net minimizes the pressure on Zoubek and Thomas.

“What they’ve done has really been great, being able to come in for me and Lance and not have a drop off and provide a little bit of a different look,” Zoubek said. “It al-lows me and Lance to play all-out and not pace.”

That different look also creates nightmares for op-posing coaches, who must prepare not only for a bruis-ing, more traditional center in Zoubek, but also for the hyper-athletic plumlees.

“You just got to play hard when you come in, just have an edge, bring energy,” Mason said.

In short, both Miles and Mason accentuate what makes this Blue Devil team different than previous incarnations—depth down low and a plethora of rebounders.

But more than anything, it is their ability to reenergize the team off the bench—either with a rim-rocking putback dunk or simply a solid screen—that makes the plumlees so crucial to Duke’s title hopes.


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zoubek and thomas

Senior big men peaking at perfect timeby Felicia Tan

THE CHRONICLE

They’re the Other Two.Last Sunday, facing a formidable Bay-

lor frontcourt in the Elite 8, those Other Two made two of the biggest plays of the game with the clock ticking steadily to-ward zero. Brian Zoubek drew a charge on the Bears’ Quincy Acy, allowing the Blue Devils to go on a 15-3 run and take the lead for good. Three minutes later, Lance Thomas followed a Kyle Singler 3-point attempt, finishing with a tip-dunk-and-one that gave Duke an even larger cushion in the contest. Jon Scheyer stopped just short of calling it the biggest play of the game.

And now, Thomas and Zoubek have the Final Four they came for.

Much has been made of the Blue Devils’ five-year absence from the Final Four. Fair or not, when measured by the Duke standards of the last couple de-cades, those five years seem like a bona fide drought. With their crucial play in the final minutes against Baylor, though, the two seniors secured the Blue Devils a trip to Indianapolis, and the national championship now hangs in the balance for Duke.

“We feel great about what we’ve done so far, but as I’ve said many a time, we don’t want it to end,” Zoubek said Tuesday, a little more than 24 hours before taking off for

Indiana. “Winning against West Virginia and having a chance to play for a national championship—that’s what you dream of as a basketball player your entire life.”

Thomas and Zoubek are often over-shadowed by the “Big Three,” the trio of Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith who snag the lion’s share of Duke’s points. The two big men have faced more than their fair share of adversity and animosity during their Duke careers after coming out of high school as high-ly rated prospects. And both have truly found their place on this year’s Blue Devil squad.

While setting screens, playing solid de-fense and rebounding will never garner

quite the attention that alley-oops and back-breaking 3-pointers do, Duke sim-ply would not be where it is, playing for a berth in the NCAA championship game, without those very contributions from a certain two seniors.

“I think people [on this team] have grown into knowing the value of their roles,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Like, for Brian, he knows even if he scores four points, it could be because of him that we win the game. Lance, the same way.”

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They allowed a fierce Terrapin comeback in the final minutes but won the game on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Korie Lucious, Lucas’s replacement. Two wins later, af-ter victories over Northern Iowa and Tennessee, they’re back in the Final Four for the sixth time in the past 12 years.

“[The injury] part of it has been a little more unnerving than some Final Four runs,” Izzo said. “It’s made it more satisfy-ing, too. I think it’s what I look at now and say, ‘Wow, you know, our guys really did do what you asked them to do.’ They’ve handled some adversity, and they’ve sucked it up and toughed it out. And we’re heading to Indy, and that’s awesome.”

Michigan State did it by patching together a point guard rotation consisting of Lucious, former walk-on Mike Kebler and even 6-foot-6, 235-pound forward Draymond green. It hasn’t been easy—the Spartans’ four wins have come by an aggregate total of 13 points—but so far, Michi-gan State has been able to get enough production from the point guard position to keep on winning.

“We’ve had good success during the years, and I think we’ve just been fortunate in these Final Fours,” Izzo said. “You’ve got to be good and you’ve got to be lucky, and we’ve been a little bit of both.”

That has certainly been true in this year’s Tourna-ment. As well as the Spartans have played, they have also caught a few breaks. A last-minute lane violation helped seal their first-round win over New Mexico State. perhaps more importantly, they did not have to play any of the top three teams in the Midwest Region: No. 9 Northern Iowa knocked off top seed Kansas in the second round, No. 6 Tennessee defeated No. 2 Ohio State in the Elite 8 and No. 3 georgetown lost to 14-seed Ohio in the first round.

But Michigan State will take it, and now the Spartans are off to Indianapolis, where they are a perfect 7-0 in NCAA Tournament play. They will face a Butler team that should have a decided home court advantage, but after everything the Spartans have endured this season, don’t expect them to be fazed.

“We’re going to stick together,” green said. “We still

have a goal. We still are playing for ourselves, the program, but we’re still playing for Kalin Lucas as well. He carried us through a game and a half, and he carried us when we he was in there, when he went down. So we know we have to keep carrying him.”

So far, the Spartans have found a way to carry Lucas to In-dianapolis, where he will watch from the bench as his team-mates compete in their second consecutive Final Four.

Last year’s run, with Detroit as the host city, was heart-warming. This season’s is improbable.

“I appreciate each one,” Izzo said of his many trips to the Final Four. “Sometimes things come—like the year af-ter we went to the first one, it seemed like we should’ve got back to the next one, and we did. And then there’s years like 2005 or maybe this year, where you say, ‘Where did it come from?’”

If the past 12 years have taught college basketball fans anything, it’s that they should never react that way to a Fi-nal Four that includes Michigan State. And they shouldn’t be shocked if somehow, some way, Izzo and Co. manage to cut down the nets in Indy.

MIChIgAN STATe from page 5


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face a zone defense for the bulk of the game. “They have such length when Devin Ebanks or

Da’Sean Butler are at the top of that 1-3-1,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said.

Indeed, the focus of the West Virginia zone will be to put pressure on the ball above the key using the athleticism of But-ler, Ebanks and Joe Mazzulla. The Mountaineers hope to force turnovers and keep Duke away from the paint, where West Virginia only has one body in the low post. As with the game against Baylor, the Blue Devils’ backcourt will have to deal with intense defense as soon as it steps over the halfcourt line.

“You really need to watch out for those two wings because they come up really high,” Jon Scheyer said.

Fortunately for Duke, several elements of the team’s success this year, namely solid guard play and offensive rebounding, are effective weapons against the zone. Scheyer is one of the best in the nation in terms of assist-to-turnover ratio, and Nolan Smith has proven himself to be a solid secondary ballhandler.

As for the frontcourt, Brian Zoubek, Lance Thomas and Miles and Mason plumlee not only make Duke the biggest team remaining in the Tournament, but also gives it a significant advantage when it comes to grabbing missed shots. The foursome grabbed 18 offensive rebounds against Baylor, and a similar domination of the glass is crucial for success against West Virginia, especially if the shots aren’t falling. But with any luck, the Mountaineer zone won’t be enough to kick the Blue Devils out of Indy.

zoNe DeFeNSe from page 8

Durham in 10 years. Duke blew leads against N.C. State and Virginia Commonwealth in the postseason that year, with both games coming down to the final few possessions. The players never blamed those losses on bad luck at the time, but Tuesday, with just one weekend left in his college career, Scheyer acknowledged the hardships from his first year.

“We had four or five games where we lost in overtime or at the end of the game where we caught some bad breaks,” he said. “Beating Duke is a big thing—that’s something you know coming to Duke, but I still had to face that freshman year.”

The talent was certainly there sophomore year to be good—new arrivals Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith added an offensive burst, and the Class of 2010 had nowhere to go but up. But the busts continued in dis-appointing fashion—in March, a rumored team-wide flu seemed to sap Duke’s energy. Only a miracle coast-to-coast layup by Henderson kept the Blue Devils from being embarrassed by Belmont in the NCAA Tourna-ment’s first round, but that merely staved off the inevi-table when West Virginia stomped them in the second half by roughhousing Duke at every opportunity.

Then came junior year, and while the Blue Devils finally seemed to create their own luck with their win against Texas, they didn’t know how to sustain it and bowed out rather unceremoniously against Villanova.

But now, Scheyer, Zoubek and Thomas know how to make victories happen on a consistent basis. In previous years, there’s no way this team could break away from a dogged purdue squad after being knotted up for basically the entire contest. Before this season, there’s no way this team could withstand Baylor’s athleticism and crash the boards as effectively as they did Sunday.

But now, Scheyer always believes he’s going to win, and backs it up with 3-point daggers and a refusal to make mistakes. Zoubek believes it by setting brutal screens on perimeter defenders and drawing critical charges. Thomas believes it by getting position on guys several inches taller and much more athletic to get rebounds an average player his size wouldn’t come close to.

“I’m stronger… for going through those experiences I had as a freshman and a sophomore,” Scheyer said. “Baylor made some runs at us, but I was confident the whole way. I had doubts freshman year, but I’ve been through a lot of games, and just being through it helps you more than anything.”

The result is that the seniors have a chance to exor-cise one last demon—a rugged West Virginia foe that dealt them arguably the most physically exhausting and overpowering defeat of their careers.

“Everybody doubting us in my younger years—all that’s in our heads right now,” Zoubek said. “While we believe we don’t have to make up for anything, we want to show everyone how good we are.”

And now, Scheyer, Zoubek and Thomas have shown how wrong their classmates were for thinking a Final Four opportunity had passed them by.

SeNIoR ClASS from page 6

“No one really gave us a chance,” Battier said at the time.As a No. 1 seed for the fourth consecutive season, Duke

swept through the East Regional and into the Final Four on the identical greensboro-to-philadelphia-to-Minneapolis itinerary as the 1992 championship team. Boozer returned to the team in a reserve role in the regional semifinals. Still, the Final Four presented a new set of challenges, beginning with the fourth installment of the heated rivalry that season with Maryland. The Terrapins had not only won in Cameron Indoor Stadium two years in a row, but had also held double-digit leads in their two losses to Duke that season.

After 13 minutes, Maryland led by 22 points, 39-17. On press row, the murmurs were audible. On the floor, Krzyzewski tried to loosen up his players.

“You’re losing by so much, you can’t play any worse,” he told them during a timeout. “So what are you worried about—that we’re going to lose by 40?”

At halftime, Duke still trailed by 11, and no team had overcome a halftime deficit that large in an NCAA Tourna-ment semifinal game. Then, after the Blue Devils had finally edged in front late in the game, Duhon lunged for a steal, collided with Maryland’s point guard and landed flat on his back and head. While Duhon was laid out for several min-utes with his second concussion in a month, Battier told his teammates, “The time is now.” The 95-84 win that night was one of the most dramatic comebacks in Final Four history. Two nights later, Duke was the national champion.

Battier went on to be picked sixth in that year’s NBA Draft, and Williams and Dunleavy followed as the second and third picks one year later. That national championship was not won with talent alone, though. As Krzyzewski told the assembled press corps after winning his third national title, his team did it with heart and with courage, game after game, giving all of us at Duke a true team for all seasons.

DuKe 2001 from page 6


Before rejoining the program as an assistant coach, Nate James (left) started 29 games for the Blue Devils’ national championship team in 2001.


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the past 14 years, but this is the first time the squad will stay on for the Final Four.

Butler’s success is often attributed to Ste-vens, who made a life-changing decision in 2000. He left his job as a marketing represen-tative at the medicine manufacturer Eli Lilly to pursue a college coaching career. Becom-ing head coach in 2007, Stevens has directed the Bulldogs to a 86-14 record in his first three years. Stevens has relied on his commanding knowledge of the game to lead a team of not terribly athletic players, only two of whom are taller than 6-foot-3, to the Final Four. With 86 total wins and three NCAA bids under his belt, Stevens has one of the greatest starts to a career in college coaching history.

Stevens said the key to his achievement comes from his drive to perform as well as he can at everything he does.

“I was told by a person at [Eli] Lilly early on in my time that the secret is just do your job to the best of your ability and don’t worry about anything else,” he said. “That’s what I’ve tried to do. So I’ve never put a timeline on anything. It’s always just been about try-ing to do whatever job I’m assigned well.”

Adding more excitement to the Bull-dogs’ Tournament run, Butler will be the first team to play a Final Four in its home-town since UCLA in 1972. While they have struggled to sell out their stadium in the past, Stevens said that the Bulldogs have solid fan support, and the environment during home games is always loud and lively despite the empty seats.

Even with the Lucas Oil Stadium being just a few miles from Butler’s campus, Ste-vens doesn’t think the fans are going to be a deciding factor come Saturday.

“Everybody is talking about us playing at home,” Stevens said. “Michigan State won a Final Four in Indianapolis in 2000…. This

BuTleR from page 5is Butler country, but it’s also Big Ten coun-try. It’s not like it’s going to be an all-Butler crowd on Saturday.”

Indianapolis may be special to Butler in particular, but Duke head coach Mike Krzyze-wski said that there is something about the Circle City and its unique relationship to col-lege basketball that is special for every team.

“It has been a great place to have a Final Four,” Kryzewski said. “I love a Final Four where you are playing and the people can just walk around. There is a spirit there.... It’s such a good town and a good sports city that having it right there adds a lot to it.”

Bringing home a national title home come Monday would mean tremendous things for the Bulldogs’ program and its fans—even if home is just down the road.

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Brian zoubek and lance Thomas came up with key rebounds and defensive stops against Baylor Sunday.

of crashing the offensive boards. In fact, over the first two weekends, the Blue Devils averaged an absurd 15.8 offen-sive rebounds per game. Those boards are critical, especially considering Duke hasn’t been a particularly good shooting team in terms of field goal percentage, where it checks in at a mediocre 43.9 percent.

Consider this: The point differential in Sunday’s final score was seven points. The tally for second-chance points? Bay-lor, 16. Duke, 23.

“They’ve carried us, you know, especially on the boards, Brian having 14 boards the last game and Lance having nine the game before,” Scheyer said.

And as two of the most veteran players on the team, Thomas and Zoubek exert their influence through sheer will and senior leadership, the latter a fleeting commodity in today’s college basketball environment. In one instance, Zoubek picked up his fifth foul Sunday with 2:18 showing on the game clock, the Final Four on the line and his team up six. The center headed back to the Duke bench, TV cameras trained on him.

Zoubek pointed at replacement Miles plumlee, looked him straight in the eye

zouBeK/ThoMAS from page 13and implored him to take over where he had left off. It was not unlike a general sending his troops off to war.

“The thing that was going through my head was, ‘I fouled out,’ and I didn’t want that to be the last thing that I did in my Duke career,” Zoubek recalled. “I knew that Miles could take care of busi-ness. I wanted to make sure that he knew that I believed in him, and that he could have no letdown when he got in. And he did a great job.”

A few minutes later, Thomas wove be-tween the Baylor players and dunked the Singler miss, despite being stymied by the Bears’ long and athletic front line for nearly the entire game. No matter—Thomas came up with the biggest play when it mattered the most.

“We’ve been underrated and looked over my whole career, and sometimes

we may have deserved it,” Zoubek said of the Duke teams he has been a part of over the past four years. He may as well have been referring to Thomas and himself.

But in his last year as a Blue Devil, the now-fully-healthy Zoubek has finally giv-en Duke the legitimate center presence so many have said it lacked since Shelden Williams graduated in 2006.

Even beyond that, Zoubek said that after having been through the public’s abuse, the media’s criticism and some devastating losses the past four years, he and Thomas understand where they need to be on the court and what kind of attitude they need to adopt in every situation. These seniors are determined to make the most of their last chance at a national title run, and so far, they’re doing just fine.


THIS SPRINGTHIS SPRING from guarding Dunn took him out of his offensive game, but the end result—a Blue Devil victory —still came to pass.

Heading into Saturday, Singler will likely be asked to play a similar role in slowing down an equally impressive foe—West Vir-ginia’s Da’Sean Butler. The 6-foot-7 forward, who is too tall for guards and too quick for traditional big men, boasts a similar skill set to Singler in terms of his versatility. When the Blue Devils were eliminated by the Mountain-eers in the 2008 NCAA Tournament, Butler was a third option to Joe Alexander and Alex Ruoff, but he has quickly evolved into the go-to guy for the squad this year.

“Butler is one of the best players in the country,” Krzyzewski said. “He’s a great player and a clutch player. I mean, there’s nobody who’s hit as many big shots as this kid. Having a guy like him on your team is what every coach would like. He’s a great, great player.”

Butler, who averages more than 17 points and six rebounds per game, hit game-winning shots against Cincinnati in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tour-nament and against georgetown in the final. In addition, the senior showed his ability to get hot quickly, as he made four straight 3-pointers against Kentucky Sat-urday to put West Virginia in control of that game, which sent the Mountaineers to the Final Four.

Suffice it to say, if Singler gets the pri-mary assignment on Butler, he will have his hands full. It could mean that Duke will have to sacrifice some of his offense in order to slow down one of the most dan-gerous offensive players in Indianapolis.

“We’re very fortunate to have Da’Sean But-ler,” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said. “When your best player is arguably your

best person, without a question your hardest worker, you’re going to be pretty good.”

It is unlikely that Singler will be held with-out a field goal again, and the game against Baylor could have simply been an aberra-tion that the junior will quickly shake off.

But if Singler’s offensive game was ham-pered by the fact that he was busy slowing down an explosive scorer, then it is not unrea-sonable to expect his offensive contributions against West Virginia to be fewer than usual.

However, even if Singler’s stat line is not as glamorous as it normally is, he’ll be fulfilling his top priority—helping the team win. And if Duke advances to Mon-day to play for a fourth national champi-onship, that’s all that matters.


Kyle Singler was assigned to cover quick guards like laceDarius Dunn and Tweety Carter against Baylor.

SINgleR from page 8


kicking out, getting extra shots and playing defense—all those things have been working for us. And that’s what we base our game on.”

It’s a big change for Duke, replacing the 3-point-happy team of 2008 with the offensive rebounding ma-chine of 2010.

West Virginia has also evolved, although not as drasti-cally. Butler has become a star. Sophomores Devin Ebanks and Kevin Jones provide new scoring options.

And that point guard who terrorized the Blue Devils? He’s back in a major role after an injury to starter Truck Bryant. It is largely thanks to Mazzulla’s stellar Elite 8 per-formance against Kentucky, in fact, that West Virginia finds itself in the Final Four.

Now, he’s ready to lead his team against the one he once taunted with a mock floor slap—under even brighter lights than before.

“It’s not about payback or anything like that,” Scheyer said. “But the last time you play somebody, you remember what that team was like.”

Come Sunday morning, Duke hopes its last memory of West Virginia is of a team that didn’t get an opportunity to talk trash, even if it wanted to.

against Baylor: “My boy [Jon Scheyer] tweeted yes! I have secret tho! I had to take his phone and do it!” If that doesn’t speak to a team that loves spending time together, I don’t know what does.

4. this team has been through the bad times and grown together into something special. If there’s anything that really separates this Duke team from your older brother’s villainous Duke team, this is it.

These Blue Devils start three seniors and two juniors. The seniors were here in 2007, easily the program’s worst season since 1995, and lost in the first round to VCU. They experi-enced the near-loss to Belmont in 2008 and a Sweet 16 shellack-ing last year. They read countless articles wondering if Duke was done as a national power, and heard countless talking heads on ESpN questioning the way Krzyzewski recruited and coached. They watched four players transfer away from Durham, even as they remained loyal to the program.

After all that, they’re finally being rewarded. In an era

where the best college basketball players are often one- or two-year rentals, Duke’s three seniors and two juniors are throwbacks. The most telling moment of Duke’s regional final victory was when Brian Zoubek fouled out of the game, walked back to the bench and screamed encourage-ment to his teammates. It had never been more plainly obvious: This season matters to these players, these guys who were so highly regarded coming out of high school and who will play many more years of basketball in the future, as much as it matters to the guys at the end of the bench who will never play another minute of competi-tive basketball and the fans in the stands who have never played a minute of competitive basketball.

These Duke players are not mercenaries, not Duke students in name only. They are student-athletes, coached by a man who restored American basketball to its rightful place at the pinnacle of world hoops, who enjoy play-ing with one another and take pride in putting on their school’s jersey. If that’s what passes for a villain in college basketball today, then here’s one man’s hope that Duke is never loved.

FANARoFF from page 7

WeST VIRgINIA from page 11


Junior Kyle Singler and senior lance Thomas aren’t faking it—this group of Duke teammates truly likes one another, on and off the court.

melissa yeo/ChroniCle file photo

Senior Brian zoubek was a non-factor in 2008, but he will be critical against West Virginia in Saturday’s rematch with the Mountaineers in the Final Four.


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