The men's basketball team will be trying to erase the memories of Atlantic Coast Conference Tournaments of old when they meet the ninth-seeded Virginia Cavaliers on Thursday in Greensboro, N.C. Duke has not won an ACC Tournament game in three years and is 2-5 since 1992.
"We're a better basketball team by far than we were last year," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "Last year's team did an incredible job in the regular season, but we just had to expend so much energy."
The No. 1 Blue Devils have a seemingly excellent chance to reverse the trend against a team that they have already beaten twice this season. The Cavaliers finished up 11-18 in the regular season and only 3-13 in the ACC. Duke, on the other hand, is coming off an important, emotional and momentum-building victory over its arch nemesis, North Carolina.
"Winning a big game like that really increases your confidence going into the postseason," Krzyzewski said.
The Cavaliers, however, possess one of the best inside-outside, one-two punches in the ACC with Norman Nolan and Curtis Staples, the ACC's second and fourth leading scorers,respectively.
Nolan, a bigger, but less agile version of UNC's Antawn Jamison, will try to pound the Blue Devils inside for easy buckets, as he did in the two teams' first meeting of the season, a 103-59 Duke victory in Cameron Indoor Stadium. For the game, Nolan racked up points. Staples, however, was the key to keeping the Cavaliers close against the Blue Devils in Charlottesville.
Staples,who on Sunday became the all-time NCAA leader in three point field goals,is deadly from the outside when he gets a good look at the basket. Since the Cavaliers have very little scoring punch outside of Staples and Nolan, Duke will try to limit the number of touches that Virginia's two stars get.
Elton Brand's return worked wonders for Duke's inside presence against North Carolina, and it should be a great help in containing Nolan around the basket. Brand hit key baskets down the stretch in the Blue Devils' last regular-season game, but perhaps more importantly, he wore out the Tar Heels' interior defenders to a point where they were easily exploited at the end of the game.
"In Charlottesville, Roshown McLeod was really their primary inside threat," Virginia head coach Jeff Jones said. "When they've got Brand inside, it allows them to go big, and yet still have four guys on the floor who can knock down the three."
Trajan Langdon will be assigned the task of guarding Staples. He will simply try to cover him the way he always has. He believes that the only way to stop Staples is to deny him the ball. Since Staples is almost exclusively an outside threat, Langdon can worry less about stopping him off the dribble, and more about face-guarding the third-team All-ACC selection.
Outside of these two superstars, the Duke defense has very little to worry about. Colin Ducharme has established himself as a legitimate Division I player, but sophomore Willie Dersch-an extremely highly touted recruit two years ago-has struggled in all facets of his game.
Donald Hand and Chezley Watson have split time at the point guard spot for the Cavaliers. Both freshman are highly inexperienced and it sometimes shows on the court. Neither is a good shooter, nor an exceptional playmaker or penetrator. Relaxing the defense on the point guard makes it easier for Duke to take care of Staples.
In addition to having holes in its starting lineup, Virginia has gotten little to no help from its bench, which has been at best erratic and at worst a hindrance to the Cavaliers chances of winning. There is, however, some precedence to help Cavalier fans believe that they could spring the huge miracle.
Not only did the eighth-seeded Wolfpack of N.C. State knock off top-seeded Duke last year, but the tournament format has changed, giving the winner of the one vs. nine game a day off afterwards, allowing the bottom team to concentrate on winning the big one. In addition, people in general, and specifically at the ACC Tournament, where most every college has fans at every game, there has been a tradition of rooting for the underdog.
"I think that the emotion can be in nine's favor," Jones said. "Anytime you're playing the No. 1 seed, it's going to be one of the best teams in the country and you've got a chance to do something really special if you can pull off the upset that no one in their right mind would have predicted."
Emotion, however, will likely not be enough to propel the Cavaliers to the upset of the year over the top-ranked Blue Devils. They will need huge contributions from players who have not stepped up all season.
"We're hopeful that we can play the kind of game that can allow us to knock off a great team like Duke," Jones said.
If the Cavaliers do not play that game, the Blue Devils will get a day off to rest while No. 4 Clemson and No. 5 Wake Forest duel it out on Friday for the right to be the next team to try to pull off the upset. Clemson has played extremely well since losing in overtime at Virginia, and they have played Duke close both at Cameron and in their arena.
Clemson, however, is considered by most a virtual lock for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Wake Forest needs to win at least one, and maybe two games, in order to present a stronger case to the selection committee. Duke has demolished Wake Forest in both meetings this year, but late in the season, senior guard Tony Rutland has stepped up his game, and fellow senior guard Jerry Braswell has broken his season-long slump and is playing very effectively.
Either way, the Blue Devils are faced with high caliber opponents preventing them from reaching the ACC Tournament finals. First, however, they must be sure not to take Virginia's tag-team of Staples and Nolan for granted.
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