ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The similarity could not be ignored.
With 4.5 seconds left in its South Regional final showdown with Kentucky, the men's basketball team found itself in almost exactly the same situation that had made the Duke-Kentucky rivalry famous.
Just as Duke had trailed Kentucky in a 1992 regional final-by one point, with 2.1 seconds remaining-the Blue Devils were a basket and a few seconds away from victory Sunday at Tropicana Field. Instead of 6-foot-8 forward Grant Hill throwing the baseball pass to Christian Laettner, who broke the Wildcats' hearts in 1992, Sunday's game saw 6-8 Duke forward Shane Battier looking to throw the baseball pass.
In '92, Kentucky coach Rick Pitino was criticized for not putting a defender on the ball, thus giving Hill an open view of the court.
With Tubby Smith in the Kentucky coaching box, Battier's view was initially blocked by Jamaal Magloire, but later cleared up, as Magloire backed away when Battier was handed the ball.
Even Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who before the game had asked reporters not to focus on the '92 matchup, admitted that Sunday's end-game situation might have been like a flashback "if we had a full timeout."
Despite appearances, the finish Sunday was quite different from that of Duke's 1992 miracle triumph, for reasons beyond the final result.
For starters, the Duke team of '92 was the defending national champion and had all the confidence in the world. So when Kentucky's Sean Woods hit a runner to put the Wildcats ahead 103-102 with 2.1 seconds left, the Blue Devils didn't panic.
After calling a full timeout, Krzyzewski immediately told the '92 team, "We're going to win."
This time, Krzyzewski was out of timeouts, but the Wildcats called a 20-second timeout. Was Coach K's message to his team the same as it had been six years earlier?
"No," Krzyzewski said. "We just tried to get a lineup in there that might be able to put ourselves in a position to win."
Krzyzewski inserted Battier, who would attempt the long pass; Trajan Langdon and Roshown McLeod, the top two candidates to take the final three-point shot; Chris Carrawell, who would set screens; and William Avery, who would bring the ball upcourt if the long pass were not available. Although Magloire backed off when Battier received the ball, his initial presence concerned the 6-8 Duke freshman.
"It makes it a lot more difficult," Battier said. "First of all, you're worried about the man on the ball deflecting the pass. That's half the play right there -to get off the pass clean. Then, you worry about how accurate the throw is going to be. With a guy on the ball, it's almost a little bit more pressure and a little bit more hectic."
Battier looked long, but neither of his 'receivers' was open. So he took the second option, handing the ball off to Avery. Although Battier had to settle for the second option, doing so meant severely limiting Duke's chance at success.
"I wish that we could have [inbounded the ball] down the court," Avery said, "because it takes a lot of time when you have to dribble it up. The pass is always faster than the dribble. But it was getting about that time where we were about to get the five-second violation, so I had to run back and get the ball."
Avery caught the ball and looked for an open teammate-the only time during his dribble, he later admitted, that he looked for another Blue Devil. When he couldn't find anyone, he rushed the ball upcourt, doing his best to keep up his dribble against pressure by Kentucky guard Jeff Sheppard.
Avery counted down the game clock in his head and looked up momentarily at the clock above the basket, and when he reached a point 30 feet from the basket, he stopped, leaned toward the basket and fired a prayer.
Kentucky's Heshimu Evans later admitted that he thought Avery could have gotten closer to the basket. Krzyzewski didn't disagree, but was far from displeased with the freshman guard's shot selection.
"He shot a longer shot than he probably wanted to," Krzyzewski said, adding that "when I saw the shot go up, I thought he might have hit it."
Along with Krzyzewski, more than 40,000 other spectators-from the fans at the top of Tropicana Field's dome to the players on the court-held their collective breath.
"When I saw the ball go up," Sheppard said, before stopping, thinking and letting an extra Kentucky twang creep into his voice. "I was glad that thang didn't go in."
If it had, Sheppard, his teammates and especially their fans would have kept carrying a grudge against Duke that started with Laettner's shot six years ago. Instead, as Smith noted, they exorcised demons of the '92 loss and brought things full-circle.
Said Krzyzewski: "I believe God puts us in positions. He put me in two with Kentucky-one, we won; one, we lost. I thank God for putting me in both of them."
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