ATLANTA - Shortly after Georgia Tech had retired Matt Harpring's jersey in a pre-game ceremony, the men's basketball team did all it could to retire Harpring's NCAA tournament hopes. Harpring's Yellow Jackets would have all but clinched an NCAA bid with an upset win Wednesday, but rather than leading his team to victory, the senior forward was reduced to the role of spectator.
In fact, if Harpring had had as much success the rest of his career as he did Wednesday night, Yellow Jacket fans might have asked him to retire long before they could retire his jersey.
Top-ranked Duke played suffocating defense at every position, but especially did a number on Harpring, Tech's third-leading all-time scorer. The senior forward shot 2-of-10 in the first half, with both of his baskets coming on second-chance tip-ins.
As the half wore on and the Blue Devils continued to deny him, Harpring grew visibly frustrated, hollered for the ball and began pushing back when Duke's Roshown McLeod bumped him on the low post.
"The beginning was the real key," said Tech Coach Bobby Cremins. "Our offense really looked out of sync. It seemed like we were trying too hard, and the harder we tried, the worse we got."
Sure enough, after intermission, things got no better for Harpring. Early in the second half, he slashed toward the hoop but had his shot blocked by Shane Battier. Later, with Battier out of the lane, Harpring drove but had his shot swatted again, this time by McLeod. He missed a layup in traffic, clanked a three-point attempt off the rim and missed badly on a fadeaway jumper with Battier in his face.
Overall, he shot 5-for-20 from the field and committed four turnovers.
"We tried to make it difficult for him to get open looks," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who was as pleased by Harpring's low number of free-throw attempts (2) as by the forward's poor shooting percentage. "He draws fouls very well, and I thought we did a really good job of keeping him off the line, putting our hands away when he was trying to draw contact. I thought we showed good discipline."
The Blue Devils carried over that good discipline to the offensive end, led by their tri-captains, Steve Wojciechowski, Trajan Langdon and Roshown McLeod. The senior trio (Langdon is a fourth-year junior) hit 15-of-22 from the field, including 5-of-9 from three-point range, and recorded three blocks and four steals. Harpring and Yellow Jacket senior Michael Maddox, meanwhile, missed 23 of their 31 field-goal attempts and committed six turnovers with just two assists.
Although the Blue Devils were concerned primarily with winning their 14th Atlantic Coast Conference game, they also turned Tech's Senior Day into their own.
"We were psyched up for the game," Harpring said, "but when you're playing the No. l team and you don't play well and they do,... you don't have a chance."
Still, more was on the line for Duke-especially for its seniors-than another conference win. By winning, the Blue Devils clinched at least a share of the ACC regular-season championship for the second consecutive year. Last season they won the title outright, a feat they can duplicate with a victory Saturday against No. 3 North Carolina.
Back-to-back championships would be particularly sweet for Wojciechowski, Langdon and senior forward Ricky Price, who endured difficult freshman and sophomore years, during which Duke won only half of its 62 games.
"We've definitely come a long way," Wojciechowski said. "My freshman year, we stunk. To come back and put two more ACC championships to the Duke tradition, it's an honor for me to do that.
"We mostly try to put [freshman year] out of our minds. But there are times... when we can say, 'Remember freshman year?' It's nice to get a little bit of payback."
The turnaround since 1994-95, most of which Krzyzewski missed with a back injury, has been remarkable. That year, five teams scored 90 or more points against Duke.
This season, just two opponents-No. 2 Arizona and No. 3 UNC- have scored at least 85 points against the Blue Devils. Overall, Duke has allowed 63.1 points per game, forcing an average of nearly 21 turnovers per contest and holding opponents below 41 percent shooting for the season.
"Duke is the best defensive team I've seen in a long time," Cremins said. "We just couldn't run our offense. We had worked on it. We actually put six, seven guys on defense in practice, and we actually ran the offense pretty good.
"It just seemed like they forced us into taking bad shots, they forced the action."
By forcing the action, the Blue Devils prevented Harpring-typically one of the most active players in the ACC-from taking action.
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