After Sunday's 19-point win over No. 16 UCLA, Duke guard Jeff Capel had a message for those who are on the NCAA Tournament selection committee: "Let us in. We feel like we are definitely one of the top 64 teams in the country."
That's something the Blue Devils couldn't say earlier in the season, when they lost their first four Atlantic Coast Conference games. But Sunday, the possible tournament bid was the most talked about topic in the Duke locker room. Nearly every player was asked about the team's chances of being in the NCAA Tournament at the end of the year. And while most players think they do deserve a bid, they know all they can do is play good basketball for the rest of the season, and then sit and wait. Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski isn't going to start copying the Republican presidential candidates and travel cross-country in hopes of swaying the committee.
"I'm not a politician," Krzyzewski said. "I don't want to become a politician. Certainly we've had a good schedule. We've played real well, and we are playing our best right now. I thought that we would be a tournament team. That's for somebody else to decide."
At the beginning of the ACC schedule, not many people believed that the Blue Devils would make the NCAA Tournament. Duke lost its first four league contests, and remarks about last year's two-win conference season were found floating around Cameron. It was at that point that Krzyzewski decided to revamp the entire offense. It's a move not many coaches would have made. But the move turned the team around, and Duke suddenly was one of the up-and-coming teams in the nation.
Still, the Blue Devils were lacking something. After a big win over Clemson, Duke lost two straight conference games, and then lost junior forward Carmen Wallace for the rest of the year. Things didn't look good, as the team was down to seven scholarship players.
Against Virginia on Feb. 14, the Blue Devils found the confidence which had been lacking in the past games. Starting with the Cavaliers, Duke reeled off three straight ACC wins, and found itself in the middle of the pack in the league standings. But the three teams Duke had defeated-Virginia, N.C. State and Florida State-weren't exactly the cream of the crop of the conference. Duke needed a big win over a big team to prove to the NCAA selection committee and the rest of the nation that it deserved a bid.
The funny thing was, after the game, while the Cameron Crazies stormed the court in celebration of the big win, the players didn't react the same way. In the locker room, the players calmly enjoyed a victory they expected all along. The Blue Devils expected to win.
"Not many people thought we were going to win this game, except for staff and the players on the team, and we proved a lot of people wrong," junior center Greg Newton said.
The Duke team that was on the court Sunday was a team far removed from last year's disaster. Last year, Capel complained the Blue Devils didn't play as a team, but rather they were five individuals. That has changed this season. All five starters scored in double figures for the Blue Devils, with senior Chris Collins pacing Duke with 27 points.
"We've come together as a team," Capel said. "We've come to trust each other more and rely on each other more. That's what it takes to be a successful basketball team. We know what we can be and the other side."
That other side is the leaderless team of 1994-95. With Coach K gone for the second half of the year, last year's squad didn't have anyone to turn to either on the sidelines or on the court. This year, captains Capel and Collins have provided the leadership the team needed.
One shot in Sunday's game symbolizes that leadership. With 5:55 left in the second half, a Cameron Dollar layup cut the Blue Devil lead to five at 62-57. The Bruins were on a 9-1 run, and were at what Krzyzewski called the breaking point. The next Duke possession, the team swung the ball around to Collins, who calmly drained a three-pointer. UCLA freshman forward Kris Johnson said up until that shot, his team felt it could win the game. But after the shot, it was as good as over.
Newton also had a stellar game, pulling down 12 rebounds, while scoring 12 points. It was Newton's second consecutive game with double-figures in rebounds-against Florida State he grabbed a career high 16 boards.
"The confidence in our game is going up," Newton said. "I think I should be able to go out and get 10 rebounds every game. It's something I decided to do."
There really is no better time for the Blue Devils to be playing their best than at the end of the season. If the Blue Devils play their next two games the way they played on Sunday, there is a realistic chance that their four-game winning streak will be at six when the team enters the ACC Tournament.
"The end of the season is the money time of the season," Ricky Price said. "If you do things at the end of the season, that's when you get those victories, and that's when you become a great team."
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