By Sam Federman (@Sam_Federman)
NEWARK, N.J. — With a rousing ovation from Duke’s quasi-home crowd inside the Prudential Center, the Blue Devils put the finishing touches on yet another dominant performance against Alabama, winning 85-65 to book a trip to the Final Four.
Duke is a historically good basketball team. Now 35-3, ACC double champions, and East regional champions, the Blue Devils taking down the Crimson Tide isn’t something that people didn’t see coming. But to hold the nation’s fourth-ranked offense to its second-worst output of the season, 0.89 points per possession, and to lead from start to finish in doing so, is.
This group of Blue Devils may be one of the best teams in recent memory in college basketball, and they’ll have the chance to prove that next week in San Antonio. But for this program, it’s the standard.
For most programs, they’d be at least satisfied with getting to the Elite 8 in year two with a young head coach, but at Duke, it’s the bare minimum. Jon Scheyer has repeatedly discussed how every single decision that the staff and team made since the day of that defeat has come down to making it back to that moment, and capitalizing, especially knowing that he had a truly special talent in Cooper Flagg coming into the program.
Flagg has lived up to the hype, if not exceeding it, but the success of everybody around him coming together to form this superteam has been a credit to those decisions.
One of those decisions, taking Sion James, a transfer from Tulane, has helped bolster the backcourt throughout the year. And even though his Duke journey didn’t start until his fifth year in college, he understands what it means to wear the jersey, while his history at a smaller program also allows him valuable perspective on what makes Duke special.
“(Making the Final Four) is the expectation,” James said. “Because of how it’s been here, but it’s not a guarantee by any means. Just because we go to Duke doesn’t mean that we’re going to be in the Final Four every year, it’s a grind.”
While Final Fours are always special, it takes winning two more games after that to truly leave an indelible mark on the Duke basketball legacy. This year’s team has the second highest KenPom net rating of any since that metric started in 1996-97, trailing only the 1998-99 Blue Devils.
But that Duke team, despite finishing 37-2 and going 16-0 in a strong ACC, and losing two games by a combined five points, isn’t typically mentioned in the conversation of greatest college basketball team ever. It’s because it didn’t win on Monday night.
If anything has been proven throughout this season, it’s that Duke doesn’t need to do anything out of character to beat anybody in the country, really by any margin it wants. It all comes down to execution.
“How can we continue to be us with different distractions and different environment,” Scheyer said is the main thing on his mind heading into the Final Four. “So that’s up to us to help as a coaching staff, but I know our guys will be excited and up for the challenge.”
It’s a coaching staff that lost quasi-defensive coordinator Jai Lucas to the head coaching position at Miami before the ACC tournament, but the defense looked far from uncoordinated.
Kon Knueppel played one of his best defensive games of the season against Alabama. Khaman Maluach continues to grow, and stuck with Mark Sears plenty on switches, while the ultimate trump card of Flagg’s versatility has continued to wreak havoc all tournament long. Sears didn’t score until the final minutes of the opening half, with Alabama coach Nate Oats deciding to sit him on the bench for a few minutes twice in favor of Aden Holloway.
Duke forced the Tide into much longer possessions than they’re used to, switching ball screens with length and discipline to limit any sort of advantages that Alabama typically creates.
“We have a luxury to have a guy with Khaman where he can really play different coverages,” Scheyer said. “We have a 7-foot-2 guy switching onto one of the best guards in the country and he’s doing a pretty good job moving his feet.”
There were points in the game where Duke completely shut off the paint, and there were points in the game where Duke completely shut off Alabama’s ability to get threes off. And throughout the game, it was the Tide’s inability to find either that illustrated Duke’s dominance.
No matter what gameplan you want to throw at the Blue Devils, they can take it away. After all, they’re top five in the country in both offense and defense, having won games by 20-plus points without going to 60 possessions, and going above 70 possessions. It’s the combination of size, skill, shooting, strength, and overall maturity that makes this Duke team truly special.
If you let it play the game on its terms, you’re going to lose. You can try to play it on your own terms, but you’re still going to lose, and probably by a lot.
It may not be the exact same as when Mike Krzyzewski roamed the sidelines. The team seems markedly less hateable to the average college basketball fan (while my editor will disagree with his Carolina-blue tinted glasses, the sentiment has permeated the sport). Many who hated past Duke stars can’t find it in them to hate Flagg the same way. But that doesn’t mean Coach K’s presence isn’t still felt in some way, especially for Scheyer.
“I’ve always wanted to make him proud,” Scheyer said. “I want his legacy to be how our program continues to be right there as a top program. So obviously, there’s a responsibility and you feel a pride.”
And now, San Antonio awaits.
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