Starting with its 82-72 national championship victory over Arizona in Minneapolis at the beginning of April, practically everything that could have gone right for the Duke men's basketball team has gone right.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski was awarded with basketball's penultimate honor--being enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. NABC national player of the year Jason Williams resisted the temptation to jump to the NBA, instead deciding that he could receive his degree in the months following his junior season. Point guard Chris Duhon, center Carlos Boozer, and wing man Dahntay Jones demonstrated that they could flourish independent of Williams in leading Team USA to a gold medal in the FIBA World Championship for Young Men.
The intensive postseason weight training programs of forwards Mike Dunleavy and Nick Horvath and center Casey Sanders erased any lingering doubts about whether these three juniors would have the muscle to compete effectively in the low blocks. And Duke's continuing success was practically assured by Krzyzewski's recruitment of the No. 1 recruiting class of 2002.
But with all this success comes added pressure and higher expectations, and the Blue Devils know they will be forced to deal with both in their effort at repeating as national champions. These heightened expectations have only been exacerbated by Williams' public speculation that his team could go undefeated, a possibility that even his co-captain Dunleavy believes is too early to predict with certainty.
If the opinion of Krzyzewski prevails, though, than this team will be able to combat these added pressures and continue to dominate as it did last year.
"We are a hungry team. We have put behind the fact that we won last year and are ready to do something this year," Krzyzewski said. "I don't sense anything but that. It is obvious how [the players] have worked on their own in the off-season and with our staff in the preseason."
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"We're always a team that's being shot after," Williams said. "I think that's what makes us the team we are. Especially this year, everybody's going to label us as defending champions. I think the big thing for our team is that we don't label ourselves that way."
In their attempt to create a different identity from their predecessors, the 2001-2002 Blue Devils will clearly be able to distinguish themselves in a few areas. Of the improvements made throughout the preseason, none has been more apparent than the Blue Devils' increased quickness, both mentally and physically. While Duke lost its spiritual leader in forward and consensus national player of the year Shane Battier, it gained considerable foot speed in its projected starting lineup with the inclusion of the athletic Rutgers transfer Jones.
Furthermore, instead of bringing hard-working but slower senior Nate James off the bench as they did last year, the Blue Devils can now spell their starting backcourt of Williams and Duhon by bringing in nimble freshman point guard Daniel Ewing, who has impressed Krzyzewski in the first weeks of practice.
Duke should also benefit from its deepest frontcourt in many years, as it boasts three proven juniors in Boozer, Horvath, and Casey Sanders, who transformed himself into a vital asset late last season when Boozer went down with a foot injury. In addition, the team's only senior, 24-year-old Matt Christensen,
Krzyzewski has also been pleased with his team's improved passing, an area that was a strength last year, but which has been upgraded this year because of the team's experience.
"This team can really pass," Krzyzewski said. "They have done some beautiful things in practice, and part of that is because they are so unselfish. I don't think there is anything more beautiful in basketball than a great passing team. [Basketball] is a game of connection, and the pass is the great connection, at least that we can see."
As for the connections that cannot be seen--namely, the chemistry that the teammates are able to forge in the face of ever increasing public scrutiny--the Blue Devils feel that personal accolades and notoriety will be put aside much as they were last season in order to pursue the common goal of all teams, winning it all. Just as Williams and Battier, arguably the nation's two best players, needed to share the limelight in order to succeed together, Williams, Duhon, Boozer and Dunleavy--the four players up for the Naismith National Player of the Year award--all will need to display cohesiveness to silence the naysayers that say that the Blue Devils simply have too many egos to repeat.
"It depends on attitude," Duhon said. "I think that if everyone's ego gets in the way, then it's definitely a problem. But I don't think that's going to happen with this team. Everybody has the same goal, which is to win. No one is worried about their individual stats or trying to prove something to get to the next level.... I think that's what's special about our team."
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