One championship down, two more to go.
This weekend, the seventh-ranked men's basketball team will travel to Greensboro, N.C., to try to replicate in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament what it achieved in the regular season-an ACC title.
Duke (23-7, 12-4 in the ACC) will begin its quest Friday at 2:30 p.m., taking on N.C. State, who defeated Georgia Tech 60-46 in the play-in game Thursday night.
The Blue Devils will take on some of the toughest competition they have seen all season. Although they have already faced all of the teams in the tournament, the stakes are higher this time around. It's a life-or-death situation, one loss and you're out, so every team will be grappling for survival.
Increasing the intensity, NCAA Tournament bids and seeds hang in the balance. Duke, Wake Forest and North Carolina stand a good chance of getting a No. 1 seed if either of them wins the ACC Tournament. Virginia and Florida State are on the bubble. If FSU doesn't get an NCAA bid, it is a candidate for an NIT bid, and N.C. State could also get an NIT bid if it has a good showing this weekend.
"There are going to be no easy games in the tournament," sophomore Trajan Langdon said. "Everybody's going to be fighting for their lives.... It's a new season for us, so we have to play every game as hard as we can."
Although N.C. State finished off the regular season only one notch above the ACC's cellar, it is currently one of the hottest teams in the conference. Riding a four-game winning streak, the Wolfpack staged upsets over Clemson and Wake during the course of the season.
"They're playing well right now, and they've gotten better with each game they've played throughout the season," Steve Wojciechowski said. "It's going to be a tough game. We're looking forward to whoever we have to go up against."
C.C. Harrison leads the Wolfpack, ranking ninth in the ACC in scoring, with 14.4 points per game. The second-team All-ACC pick launches his missiles with deadly accuracy, shooting .467 from the field and .422 beyond the arc, good for seventh and fifth in the conference, respectively. Perhaps his greatest moment of the season was his controversial, buzzer-beating trifecta that snatched victory from the hands of the Demon Deacons two weeks ago.
Damon Thornton poses a threat in the frontcourt. The 6-foot-7 center earned All-ACC Rookie accolades. Seventh in the conference in blocks and eighth in rebounds, with 1.2 blocks and 7.0 rebounds per game, Thornton could hit Duke right where it hurts-on the offensive and defensive glass. Although the Blue Devils may struggle to contain him, they are undaunted by Thornton's inside prowess.
"We're just going to go with our style," senior Jeff Capel said. "Right now we're just worried about Duke. Any team we play, we're just going to try to impose our will on them and try to play our style of basketball and do the things necessary to win."
After being relegated to the play-in game two scant years ago and losing their quarterfinal game in 1996, the Blue Devils enter the ACC Tournament as the No. 1 seed this year. Even though the outcome is up for grabs, Duke is considered by many to be the team to beat.
"We're the No. 1 seed in the tournament; I always thought that was the team to beat," junior Ricky Price said. "I'm not sure, but we're going to go into the ACC Tournament and play hard defensively. We want to make our ability known, on the defensive end first, and then hit big shots and execute on offense and see what happens."
If Duke goes all the way in the tournament, it will have to play three games in three days. This arduous schedule could fatigue the Blue Devils, but their depth-they possess 11 healthy players,in their rotation while N.C. State, for example, uses a seven-man rotation-could be the key to their success.
While Duke has the depth to handle three consecutive days of competition, it does have one weakness that could prove to be fatal down the stretch. The Blue Devils' penchant for taking jump shots could exhaust them over the three-day span. To combat this vulnerability, they hope to contain their opponents on the defensive end.
"[Jump shots] could be a problem, and that's why I think we're really focusing on our defense," Wojciechowski said. "I think we shot so well for a while, people forgot we're a pretty good defensive team. Right now as a team, we realize that there are going to be times when we can't just outscore people. One of our strengths has been our defense, and we want to make it hard for people to score against us so we don't have to rely on outscoring people."
In order to improve its defense, Duke believes it will have to garner more rebounds, scrap for possession and play as intensely in the paint as it does on the perimeter. Throughout the majority of the season, Capel, Price and junior Roshown McLeod have provided most of Duke's inside force, slicing through opponents' defenses and driving to the basket. Recently Langdon has begun to refine his frontcourt play as well.
If the Blue Devils hope to bring home the championship, however, every player on the court will have to fight to grab some boards.
"We have struggled with our rebounding," Langdon said. "We can't always rely on our four and five men; we have to rebound as a whole team. I don't think we can really work on rebounding. It's all just desire, intensity, heart and concentration.... It's got to come from the mind and from the heart."
One presence that has been missing, or at least muted, is that of Greg Newton. The senior center, who has struggled during the second half of the season, will play a crucial role in the outcome of Duke's trip to Greensboro.
"We feel that in order to get where we want to be, we need Greg," Capel said. "I think he realizes that even more now. I think that makes him feel more comfortable and more confident. The past couple of games, he stepped it up, and we need him to step it up even more."
Emerging victorious would be a momentous accomplishment. The ACC tournament title has been one of the Blue Devils' goals for the season. None of them have ever won it. For Capel, Newton and Carmen Wallace, this is their last chance.
The ACC tournament championship could possibly give Duke a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and would definitely give it needed momentum going into the NCAAs. However, the road to Indianapolis is a long one, and the Blue Devils intend to travel it one step at a time-their first step is defeating N.C. State on Friday.
"Regardless of what their record shows, they're a tough team," Price said. "We just have to put our hard hats on and be ready to play."
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