A year ago, the immediate future did not look bright for the Duke men's basketball program. Not only had the Blue Devils struggled to a 13-19 record, but Cherokee Parks and Erik Meek, Duke's only experienced post players, were both graduating, leaving the team with a gaping hole in its frontcourt.
Worse yet, the Blue Devils had abandoned several of the characteristics which had helped the Duke program advance to seven Final Fours, play in five NCAA championship games and win two national titles over the previous nine years. By the end of the 1994-95 season, the Duke players lacked confidence and the desire to win close games, and they functioned as a collection of individuals on the court, rather than as a team.
The situation got worse for the Blue Devils this winter when they learned that the stress reaction in sophomore guard Trajan Langdon's leg would force him to miss the season, and that academic problems would cost senior forward Tony Moore his final semester of eligibility. Even in their worst nightmares, the Blue Devils probably could not have imagined that four more scholarship players would be sidelined by injuries for parts of the season.
With all this adversity and with only two senior scholarship players on its roster, Duke's attention was focused as much on the future as on the present. Head coach Mike Krzyzewski began to talk about his squad as a transitional team between the Duke dynasty of the previous decade and the potentially dominant Blue Devil teams of the future. Who could blame him? After all, freshman Taymon Domzalski and sophomores Ricky Price and Steve Wojciechowski-three of the players who will try to help Duke reclaim its preeminence in the college basketball world over the next few years-all used their substantial playing time this season to improve their basketball skills and increase their confidence. Furthermore, with Langdon likely returning and with the additions of transfer Roshown McLeod and several promising freshmen, the Blue Devils should be loaded with talented players for the next few years.
But the player who is most responsible for revitalizing Duke will not be a part of whatever success the Blue Devils enjoy in the not-too-distant future. Senior co-captain Chris Collins, who established himself as the team leader this season, will graduate in May. Collins' hard work, emotional leadership and vastly improved play were crucial factors in helping Duke rediscover the winning attitude which was missing last season.
"I think we established again this year the kind of team that Duke wants to be, and returned, a little bit, to the way Duke has been in the past," junior co-captain Jeff Capel said after the team's 75-60 loss to Eastern Michigan. "Not by the success or the wins and losses, but we've played hard and we've competed this year. Hopefully, next year we can build on the things that Chris and [senior forward Stan Brunson] have shown us this year."
Because of his work ethic in practice, his thorough understanding of the game of basketball and his enthusiastic and energetic demeanor on the court, Collins was a natural leader for this year's Blue Devils. All season, Collins used his leadership role to fire up his teammates and instill confidence in them.
Emotion and hard work alone do not win basketball games, though. That is why Collins' performance on the court was as important to the Duke program as his effort and his attitude. Throughout his four years at Duke, Collins always possessed one of the best long-range jump shots in all of college basketball. This season, though, he worked to improve every other aspect of his game-including his defense, ball-handling skills, rebounding and ability to drive to the basket-in order to become a more complete basketball player. Because of his arduous off-season efforts, Collins was able to post career highs in nearly every statistic this season.
Perhaps the biggest way that Collins established himself as the leader on this year's Duke team was by giving the squad a lift at three times when it needed it the most-in the Great Alaska Shootout title game, in the closing seconds of Duke's victory at N.C. State and during the Blue Devils' five-game winning streak at the end of February. Although he is not as talented as some of the Blue Devils' stars of the past decade, such as Danny Ferry, Christian Laettner and Grant Hill, Collins took on the burden of being the team's go-to player at these three key junctures in the season. Because Collins was willing to step up when the team needed its leader to excel, the Blue Devils were able to overcome diminished expectations, a plethora of injuries and a lack of depth and still make the NCAA Tournament.
The first time that Collins asserted his leadership was in the championship game of the Great Alaska Shootout in Anchorage on Nov. 25. Against a talented Iowa team, Collins poured in a career-high 30 points to lead the Blue Devils to an 88-81 upset and give Duke an unexpected trophy from a tournament laden with quality teams. Collins' scoring was not his only contribution in that win. He also had seven assists, and his composure was instrumental in Duke's success against the Hawkeyes' intimidating full-court pressure defense.
The victory over Iowa propelled the Blue Devils into the national rankings, but Duke's fortunes soon changed, as a home loss to Illinois in December and Moore's ineligibility left the Blue Devils in a state of shock and disarray as the Atlantic Coast Conference season opened. Duke dropped its first four conference contests and trailed by two points in the closing seconds of its game at N.C. State on Jan. 18. Despite the team's success in Anchorage less than two months earlier, a repeat of the debacle from the previous season loomed as an ominous possibility. But with 5.5 seconds left at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, Collins rattled in a long three-point shot to steal the victory from the Wolfpack and give Duke a glimmer of hope for the remainder of the season. The Blue Devils fed off the confidence of that victory to win their next two ACC contests.
But consecutive losses at Georgia Tech and Wake Forest less than a month later left Duke with a 4-7 conference record and virtually no chance of securing a bid to the NCAA Tournament. Once again, Collins provided the spark that Duke needed. He scored 27 points in three straight games, as the Blue Devils went on a five-game winning streak which earned them a spot in the NCAAs. The Blue Devils continued to roll until Collins injured his foot in his final home game against UNC.
After struggling through an injury-riddled and victory-deprived season the previous year, Collins clearly enjoyed his role as a team leader and a go-to player this season.
"I've had more fun with this team than any team I've ever been on, even the team in 1994 when we went to the final game, because I really embraced the fact that I felt that this was my team and that I felt I could make a mark on the program by what I could do this year," he said.
In fact, Collins enjoyed his senior season so much that the season-ending loss to Eastern Michigan moved him to tears on the bench in the game's closing seconds and in the locker room and in the press conference after the game was over. While his valiant efforts were not enough to take Duke deep into this year's NCAA Tournament, Collins takes pride that his legacy can help the Blue Devils return to the Final Four in the near future.
"I'll always be a fan," Collins said. "They'll use the things that they learned, and anything that they could learn from me would make me feel great. I definitely think Duke has a bright future."
David Heinen is a Trinity senior and associate sports editor of The Chronicle.
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