ANN ARBOR, Mich. - It was a bittersweet homecoming for Blue Devils and Michigan natives Mike Chappell and Shane Battier. Expecting to see their families and take an unranked Michigan team by storm at Crisler Arena on Saturday, they had to settle for just seeing their families, as the Wolverines (6-2) staged a stunning upset over No. 1 Duke (9-1), 81-73.
Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, the Wolverines have a good collective memory. So good that, recalling last year's matchup, in which Michigan erased a 12-point halftime deficit to edge Duke by one point on a Robert Traylor dunk, it more than duplicated it.
"We thought about last year's game when we were down 12 with six minutes to go, and we figured if we were down 11 with 20 minutes to go, we still could play and win a basketball game," Traylor said. "No matter what happened, how much they got the ball, we weren't going to quit."
After Mike Chappell and Trajan Langdon opened the second half with two three-pointers in quick succession, Michigan called a timeout to regroup-and regroup it did. Traylor's dunk with 18:25 left in the half sparked a run of seven unanswered points within a 90-second span. From that point on, the momentum shifted to the Wolverines.
After shooting .500 from the field in the first half, Duke found itself stymied by Michigan's heightened defense after intermission. In the last 11 minutes, the Blue Devils sank a mere four field goals, shooting just .310 for the second half.
"I think a lot of their points came from us not playing as good on defense," Steve Wojciechowski said. "The intensity wasn't there. They did a good job, and we didn't hang on to our offense."
For the first time this season, Duke found itself starting from behind, facing a five-point deficit with 14:54 left in the first half. The Blue Devils didn't lead until Roshown McLeod nailed a feed from Wojciechowski just under 10 minutes in. From that point on, the half belonged to Duke.
Elton Brand's layup with 9:07 remaining ignited a 15-2 Duke run within a 2:18 span and gave the Blue Devils a lead they would not relinquish until the final four minutes of the game. The end of the first half virtually mirrored the end of the second; in the last five minutes before halftime, a stifling Duke defense only allowed Michigan one field goal.
But even when the Wolverines couldn't sink their shots, they had no problem with free throws. Late in the first half, Louis Bullock and Jerod Ward hit four and two, respectively, from the line, preventing the Blue Devils from putting the game out of reach. Duke got in even more foul trouble in the second half, tallying 11 fouls to Michigan's seven. Wojciechowski fouled out in the final seconds, and the Wolverines' 14 points from the charity stripe during the second stanza fueled their comeback.
To make matters worse, the Blue Devils seemed to lose their ability to hold on to the ball. They racked up nine turnovers in the second half, almost twice as many as their first-half total.
"It seemed like there was butter on the ball," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We lost it; we fumbled. It's just being human and being a team."
Michigan capitalized on the mistakes, accumulating 12 points off turnovers, including two clutch threes by Bullock. The guard didn't miss a shot from beyond the arc, going four-of-four from downtown-all within 12 minutes during the second half. Twice, it was Bullock's treys that sliced into double-digit Blue Devil leads. The second time around, Duke never fully recovered, as the Wolverines whittled its lead down to one point and then pulled away.
Michigan also held an advantage over Duke on the boards. In a game that eerily resembled last year's matchup between the two teams, the Blue Devils were outrebounded 45-29, a margin they hadn't seen since last season. Traylor led all players in rebounding with 13 boards, nine on the defensive glass.
Only two Blue Devils collected more than three rebounds. Battier made his homecoming with five rebounds. Brand netted his first collegiate double-double with 19 points and 12 boards, despite frequent double-teaming and suffocating defense from Traylor.
"I just wanted to keep him from getting two feet in the paint, basically," Traylor said. "I wanted to make him have to use more moves to get his shot up. He's a great player-don't get me wrong; he's going to be great."
"Going to be," might be the key phrase, as the Blue Devils' youth and lack of experience caught up with them for perhaps the first time this season. Three of its starters were freshmen and sophomores, whereas Michigan started five veterans on the floor. For Duke's "Fab Four" freshmen, Saturday's outing marked the first time they faced a high-caliber opponent on enemy territory. The young Blue Devils were simply unused to dealing with a hostile environment and with pressure from a team that wouldn't give up even when it was down.
"Their maturity individually and collectively was better than ours," Krzyzewski said. "We played young, and they put pressure on us. They didn't fold.... That's where toughness and maturity comes into it. I don't mean we were blowing bubbles or shaking hula hoops or anything, but it's game experience in this type of environment. This is the first time we've been in that with this group."
While Arizona made a late-game rally to come close to snatching the Maui Invitational Championship away from Duke, the competition it faced after Thanksgiving gave up easily, allowing 10- to 20-point leads to burgeon into 30- or 40-point margins of victory. The Wolverines, on the other hand, chose to pare the Blue Devils' lead down instead of letting them run away with the game.
"We came out in the second half, and we thought we were going to put them away, but they came back," Chris Carrawell said. "Every time we put a run on them, we thought they would go away, but they played well."
With their semester over and a week off from competition, Duke hopes to regain its intensity, neutralize hostile crowds on the road, and rally from behind-in short, to apply the lessons it learned at Michigan-in its Atlantic Coast Conference competition later this season.
"We haven't been behind before so far this season," Krzyzewski said. "But we still are, and we will be an outstanding team. This is going to be a great building block for us."
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