They closed out their careers like they opened them, with another ACC championship, but the four years in between were like nothing Duke basketball has ever witnessed before.
A group of Blue Devil seniors has never gone through a stretch like this year's trio. Thursday night in Cameron Indoor Stadium, Jeff Capel, Greg Newton and Carmen Wallace put the bookend on their Blue Devil careers with a rousing 81-69 victory over Maryland that clinched at least a tie for the league title.
"It's great because it's our last game in Cameron, and we were able to win a championship in our last home game," Capel said. "For me, Greg and Carmen, we'll also be able to remember that the last game we played at Cameron, we were able to win and we finished as champions."
There still remains a Sunday afternoon date in Chapel Hill with North Carolina to determine whether the Blue Devils win the title outright or share it with Wake Forest. But for one night, at least, everything went right for a group that has been through so much.
These seniors started their careers at the top of the mountain, playing in the national championship game as freshmen. They fell hard in their second year, however. Newton was placed on academic suspension late in the year, but not before he, Capel and Wallace had endured Duke's worst season ever. Duke finished 13-18, and coach Mike Krzyzewski missed the last two months of the season due to back problems.
Yet, in their final two years, the trio has climbed back up that mountain step-by-step, finishing 18-13 in their junior year, and clinching this year's league title with Thursday's win over the Terps.
"We've been up and down in our four years here," Newton said. "It's been a rough road for us. Freshman year was like cloud nine, going to the Final Four. Sophomore year was hell. So, coming back over the last two years has been a hard road. We're not done yet, but we've accomplished a lot."
On Thursday, all three seniors started, as tradition dictates, and it was obvious from the outset that the Blue Devils were playing with quite a bit of emotion.
"The seniors especially portrayed to us that since they've been here, all four years, they hadn't won here on a senior night," guard Trajan Langdon said. "That's their last time playing in Cameron, and they wanted to come out here and get a win, and we wanted to do that for them. As a team, I think we came out really emotional and did whatever it took to get the win."
The key player all night was Capel, the same player who at the start of the season looked more lost on the court than he did as a freshman. His senior season has been a microcosm of Duke's last three years. Capel has fought through, just like this entire Duke team has, and on Thursday he led Duke with a team-high 18 points.
"What Jeff taught me this year is that he was really down at the start of the year, and things weren't going well for him, and... he never got his head down," Langdon said. "He realized that there was nobody else that was causing it. He realized that it was him, and he looked upon himself to get better and to get mentally stronger, and he did that, and it's obvious how he's been a different player since his slump at the beginning of the year."
Capel. Newton. What about Wallace? He entered Duke four years ago as a scholarship player who was not expected to contribute much, if anything, while in Durham. Four years later, even Krzyzewski is surprised at how far he has come.
The trio did not win the championship alone, though. After Duke started the ACC season at 2-2, few would have picked it to win this year's title. The Blue Devils themselves didn't really start to think they could do it until after a road win over then-No. 2 Wake on Feb. 5. They have won as a team, and they have lost as a team.
In the end, they accepted the title as a collective group. Five players scored in double figures for the Blue Devils, all 10 players who saw action scored at least two points and tough defense down the stretch was once again the difference for Duke.
"Every member of our team has fought adversity at some point," Capel said. "We've all fought through it, and we realize that we're better off together, as a team. We feel like we deserve this. We've played harder than any team in the conference and hard work pays off."
The three seniors will go on to experience many different things in their lives. But Thursday night will always be with them, both for what they accomplished with one win and for what they've accomplished in four years.
"Really, it is like bookends," Wallace said. "It's been a great experience, even with the two years in the middle. We grew into men during our four years here. That's the great thing about college basketball. It's not a two-year thing, it's a four-year thing, and you're here to learn, to grow and to mature. We did all that, and now we're winning, too."
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