With the men's basketball team preparing to face UCLA in Cameron Indoor Stadium on Sunday, there were plenty of reasons for Duke fans to be excited about the game.
The Blue Devils had won their past three games, and a victory would significantly boost their chances of receiving a bid to the NCAA Tournament. Furthermore, this was an opportunity for Duke to avenge one of its most embarrassing losses in decades, a 100-77 thrashing by the Bruins in Los Angeles last February. Sunday's game also gave the Blue Devils a shot at playing the defending national champion and testing themselves against a team of the caliber that they are likely to face in March.
For many of the fans in Cameron Indoor Stadium on Sunday, though, the pregame focus was not on the importance of the game about to be played. Instead, the Cameron Crazies spent much of their ingenuity and their voices on cheering for Shaheen Holloway, the high school point guard whom Duke fans hope can lead their team back to the NCAA Final Four.
The attention which Holloway drew from the Cameron Crazies made a clear statement: Duke fans are more concerned about how the team will do over the next few years than on what will happen in the next few months.
This is perfectly understandable. After all, besides returning most of the key players from this year's team, the Blue Devils will add transfer Roshown McLeod and several highly-recruited freshmen. Senior co-captain Chris Collins, the most important player who will be graduating, will be replaced by Trajan Langdon, who is redshirting this season because of a leg injury. Furthermore, freshman Taymon Domzalski and sophomore Ricky Price will almost certainly continue to improve. In other words, Duke should be loaded with talent next year.
Besides the fact that Duke should be so strong next season, head coach Mike Krzyzewski has continually warned Blue Devil fans that this year's team is not as talented or as confident as the great Duke teams of the recent past. Coach K has also described this season as a transition year between two eras of Duke basketball. And injuries to Langdon and junior Carmen Wallace and the loss of senior Tony Moore to academic ineligibility further depleted Duke's shallow lineup. The Blue Devils further justified any diminished expectations by losing their first four Atlantic Coast Conference games.
Based on all these things, Duke fans have, at least subconsciously, realized that this year is a prelude to the renewed greatness which Duke is likely to experience over the next few years.
Slowly and quietly, though, something strange has happened. The Blue Devils are starting to skip ahead in time and play like they are supposed to be playing next year. In its 85-66 victory over UCLA on Sunday, the most recent in its four-game winning streak, Duke showed some of the reasons why it is suddenly becoming a team which nobody will want to see in its portion of the bracket when the NCAA Tournament draw is revealed next month.
So what has sparked this Duke resurgence? Part of it has been the improved play of Domzalski, who has developed into a much greater force in the paint as he has improved his post moves and his positioning on rebounds. Domzalski's improvement has taken some of the burden off of junior center Greg Newton, allowing him to flourish. Now, the frontcourt, which had been one of Duke's biggest weaknesses earlier this season, has become a strength.
Also, during Duke's current winning streak, Price has become more involved in the offense. Because Price is a dangerous shooter and is also skilled at driving to the basket, opposing defenses have had to focus much of their energy on containing him, leaving Collins and junior co-captain Jeff Capel a little more room to find open shots or open lanes to cut to the basket.
Krzyzewski also deserves much of the credit for Duke's improvement. Although Krzyzewski has always favored a man-to-man defense, he has never had as strict a system as someone like UNC head coach Dean Smith. In fact, Coach K's trademark throughout his career at Duke has been shaping his system to fit his players. He has finally figured how to do that with this year's squad, mixing in an occasional zone defense to catch opponents off guard.
Unlike last year, when Duke would try-and usually fail-to beat opponents at their own style of play, Krzyzewski has forced other teams to play the Blue Devils' game this season. For example, in its wins at Florida State and over UCLA, Duke kept the pace as slow as possible and avoided turnovers so that the Seminoles and Bruins could not beat the Blue Devils with their transition games.
All these things have improved the Blue Devils confidence and cohesiveness, as has been apparent from their coach's comments. Early in the season, Krzyzewski said that this was not yet a good basketball team. After the last two games, though, Coach K has said that this team is improving, and called Duke "a pretty good basketball team."
One factor which has been missing this year has been the raucous support of the Cameron Crazies. Although Duke's home crowd has remained one of the best in college basketball, Blue Devil fans have been neither as loud nor as inventive as they were during Duke's glory days. Thanks in large part to Holloway's presence, the crowd at Cameron Indoor Stadium was more enthusiastic on Sunday than it has been for any non-UNC game since the Duke-Michigan game in the fall of 1992, which was a rematch of the previous year's national title game. The Cameron Crazies appear to be back, and they are returning just in time to catch the Blue Devils as they make a bid to return to the promised land of college basketball-the NCAA Tournament.
David Heinen is a Trinity senior and associate sports editor for The Chronicle.
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