What did the guy from CNN/SI call us? Oh, yes, "everyone's presumptive champ." But before we can even think about cutting down the nets in St. Petersburg, there is a vital step that this Duke team needs to climb.
Duke may have wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the East Region of the NCAA tournament even if it loses to Virginia today. It might not matter, in terms of seeding for "the Big Dance," if the Blue Devils get blown out by Maryland in the tournament finals (it's hard to beat a good team three times in a row).
The conquering heroes, however, must win in Charlotte this weekend. After a season of complete dominance after one early slip-up, this is the final, and most vital stage for the boys in blue to prove their merit before March Madness arrives (it's spreading, you know).
Duke has not won an ACC tournament since 1992. Duke's last national championship team? Hmmmm, 1992 again. Coincidence? Hardly.
Over the past three years especially, Duke's performance in "the grand daddy of them all" has been extremely indicative of its performance in the slightly larger tournament thereafter. Not only that, but even in this year, a year in which the ACC is supposed to be "down," the conference tourney should provide an amazingly accurate barometer to measure up the competition that Duke might face the week after.
Three years ago, Maryland defeated an undermanned, injured, nearly broken Duke team in the first round of the ACC tournament after the Blue Devils had swept the home-and-home from the Terrapins in the regular season.
Duke then proceeded to take a team whose roster was depleted so greatly that freshman walk-on Jay Heaps got nearly 10 minutes of playing time filling in for the injured Steve Wojciechowski against Eastern Michigan in a first-round loss.
No one that year had any delusions of grandeur. The ACC tournament had showed the fans what they could expect from the team, especially given that Duke was nearly down to six scholarship players at the end of that year.
The year after was a completely different story. The Blue Devils came from out of literally nowhere to overpower everyone's Final Four contender, Wake Forest, and claim the ACC-regular season title. Using a lineup that included 6-foot-9 Roshown McLeod and often 6-6 Chris Carrawell at center, the Blue Devils overachieved but had everyone dreaming of another Final Four banner.
The ACC tournament changed that. A first-round loss to lowly N.C. State showed just how much of a mirage the success was. A team built almost wholly on heart, grit, determination, coaching and three-point bombs was exposed to be much thinner than it actually was. Suddenly, Duke's route to the Final Four became clogged with upset potential. This potential was realized when a strong, quick Providence team took the Blue Devils down in the second round of the NCAAs.
And then there was last year. Our champions, fresh off an amazing comeback win over the dreaded Tar Heels on Wojo and Ro's senior night, had an aura of invincibility surrounding them. Duke sloppily beat Virginia in the first round and snuck past Clemson on a Will Avery tip-in at the buzzer.
Then, the Blue Devils got their heads handed to them in the ACC tourney final by a UNC team that included a player of the year, two NBA lottery picks, three NBA rookies and one large, if ignorant, seventh-year senior center (did Makhtar wind up graduating? Does anyone know?). I don't know about you readers out there, but I changed my tournament pool after that one.
Duke wound up losing one of the year's best contests to the eventual national champions, Kentucky, in the Elite Eight. Inexperience, and perhaps lack of confidence, played a role in that loss. Those factors might not have been such a problem had the loss to UNC not been so commanding.
Now, we come to the present. How will this team fare? You can't tell me that UVa isn't going to be just as good as any 16 seed that the Blue Devils will face in Charlotte exactly a week after their matchup against the Cavaliers. How about the second round? Wake or N.C. State? Both sit on the tournament bubble right now. Likely Wake Forest will get in as an eight or nine seed if it, in fact, beats the Wolfpack in Charlotte.
Who does Duke play in the second round of the tournament? An eighth or ninth seed. A guy like Robert O'Kelley can dominate a game. That's what a good No. 8 or 9 seed usually has. One dominant player. Wally Szcerbiak of Miami, Ohio, comes immediately to mind.
And then a likely matchup with either the Terrapins or Tar Heels in the tourney final. Well, Maryland certainly looks like a Final Four contender, and UNC, if it ever starts playing to its full potential, could clearly make the Great Eight.
What better set of circumstances could Duke have to get itself ready for the prom in late March then a nice little semi-formal with the rest of the ACC next weekend? You never know, success might just breed success. So start filling out your brackets, iron your "Go To Hell Carolina" T-shirts and start hoping that the Blue Devils can continue their dominance of one of the best conferences in college basketball. You never know, everyone's presumptive champ might turn out to be the real deal after all.
Dave Schepard is a Trinity senior.
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