GREENSBORO--For nearly 12 minutes on March 11, it looked like the men's basketball team might be capable of doing the impossible.
The ninth-seeded Blue Devils were blowing No. 1 Wake Forest out of the water, and Duke looked like a team that could win the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.
Then Randolph Childress decided that enough was enough.
With 8:40 remaining in the first half and Duke up 31-13, Childress scored 20 of Wake's next 33 points, and the Demon Deacons took a 46-45 lead into halftime. They went on to win 87-70 in the first round of the ACC tournament in Greensboro.
Childress, who scored 107 points in three games as Wake won the tournament title, finished with 40 against the Blue Devils. Duke, which finished the season at 13-18, lost its sixth straight game against Wake.
"When they were down 18 points, [Childress] said, `This is the time that I'm going to have to step up'," said Duke freshman guard Trajan Langdon. "That's exactly what he did."
With 8:33 left in the first half, Wake called a timeout. The Deacons trailed 31-13, and Childress was angry. He let his teammates know it.
"In the timeout, it wasn't what I said, it was what our team felt, especially Randolph," Wake head coach Dave Odom said. "They were embarrassed and hurt."
But as quickly as Duke had built the lead, it disappeared. Childress hit a three-pointer seconds after the timeout to cut the lead to 31-16. After a miss by Duke freshman Ricky Price, Wake's Rusty LaRue came down and nailed a three. Then, after a quick miss by sophomore Jeff Capel, Childress nailed a 25-footer from the top of the key, and the Duke lead was 31-22. Wake center Tim Duncan hit a layup, then Childress hit a pair of two-pointers to cut the deficit to three--only three minutes after Duke had led by 18.
"They just closed the gap instantly," Duke center Cherokee Parks said. "When they started going on their run, several times we should have slowed it up and used some clock and tried to work it around. We just came down and put it up. They were doing the same thing, but they were shooting threes, and they were hitting every one."
A Chris Collins three-pointer built the Duke lead back up to six, but Childress scored 10 points in the final 4:46, and Wake went to the half with a 46-45 lead. Childress had scored 27 first-half points--which included 10 baskets in a row without a miss--and the huge Duke lead had disappeared in no time.
"I can't say I've seen a performance like that," Langdon said of Childress' explosion. "I think I have seen it, but it's at another level with a guy named Michael. It was just unreal."
Said Childress, "Early on, I felt pretty good. I got a lot of looks in a short period of time. I don't know what it was."
Whatever it was, the first-half comeback killed Duke's momentum. The Blue Devils evened the game at 55-55 early in the second half, but Wake went on a 10-0 run to take a 65-55 lead. The Blue Devils then scored eight straight points to close the gap, but once again, Childress decided to take charge.
First, he nailed a long three from the top of the circle, then he was fouled on a three-pointer by Price--the freshman's fifth foul of the game--and hit three free throws to give Wake a 71-63 lead with 5:03 left.
Down the stretch, Duke closed the gap to 77-70 with 3:26 left, but the Deacons scored the final 10 points of the game.
And then, almost appropriately, the season ended for Duke on a turnover. With 11 seconds left, Capel threw a pass toward the sideline, in between Langdon and Collins. Instead of one player grabbing the ball, both moved away, and it bounced out of bounds.
The Blue Devils finished the season at 13-18 overall--the most losses in the history of the program.
Were the Blue Devils relieved that it was finally over?
"There's not a sense of relief," said acting Duke head coach Pete Gaudet. "I'm disappointed that it's over because I wanted to keep playing. March has always been a long month for Duke."
For Wake, the season is still going. The Demon Deacons defeated Maryland and North Carolina, in overtime, to win the ACC championship. They were given the No. 1 seeding in the East Region, and they have now reached the Sweet 16.
"It's a huge day for Wake Forest University," Odom said after Wake had beaten UNC 82-80 behind Childress' 37 points. "It's been a long time coming. The only danger is savoring this too much for too long.
"[Childress] understands how to win championships. Can we win [the national championship]? Yeah, we can. Will it be easy? No, it won't. As long as we've got No. 22 [Childress], we can win it. As long as we've got No. 21 [Duncan], we can win it."
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