As the women's basketball team prepares for its journey to San Antonio amidst excitement and optimism, the oft-celebrated men's basketball team must sit at home and think about the disappointing end to its season.
No repeat national championship. No opportunity for two Duke basketball teams to compete in the Final Four at the same time. No opportunity to exact revenge on a Maryland team that beat the Blue Devils by 17 points a little over a month ago.
But perhaps most glaringly, by not advancing past the Sweet 16, national player of the year Jason Williams did not get to ride off into the sunset with a championship as last year's player of the year Shane Battier did.
Instead, Williams will have to live the memory of his erratic shooting throughout Duke's brief NCAA Tournament run and of course, his now infamous missed free throw that could have forced overtime against the Hoosiers had it fallen through the net.
It doesn't take three years of covering Williams extensively, as I have done, to understand just how hurt Williams was after he missed the shot. As all Duke basketball fans know, the New Jersey native almost always wears his feelings on his face, and his pain, frustration and sadness were quite clear in the moments after the game.
Williams has a competitive desire unlike any athlete I've ever witnessed--save Michael Jordan--and there's no doubt that as the de facto leader of the Blue Devils, held himself responsible for Duke's loss.
But I've got news for all those skeptics out there who have questioned Williams' heart and his true value as a player in the aftermath of the Indiana debacle--neither Williams' missed free throw nor Duke's supposed lack of heart were the reasons that the Blue Devils' succumbed.
In my estimation, the Blue Devils' lack of a clear leader was the major reason that slip-ups like Florida State, Virginia and finally, Indiana, occurred. Williams, as well as Mike Dunleavy, Carlos Boozer and Chris Duhon, all led by example at times, but leadership by committee usually does not result in excellence.
Especially after Battier served as a near father-figure to his 2000-2001 teammates (or as his roommate Dunleavy once joked, a motherly figure), this team was in need of a player who could take charge of a practice, a locker room discussion or a late-game huddle, not just take over a game with his play.
Clearly, on the court, no distinct leader existed. Without such a leader, the tournament-seasoned, but still young, Blue Devils (remember the only senior on the team was Matt Christensen) had little guidance except from their Hall-of-Fame coach, who can only do so much from the sidelines.
If you want to fault Williams or his co-captains Dunleavy and Boozer or Duke's point guard Duhon for not assuming this responsibility, then that's fine.
But you can't fault Williams or Duke for lack of heart.
To me, a person has heart if he is willing to take matters into his own hands in times of desperation, and no player in recent college basketball history has been more willing to do so than Williams.
Whether it was his initiation of the famous comeback against Maryland at Cole Field House last season, his 38-point outburst against Kentucky in December or even his end-of-game heroics during the Indiana game, when he almost completed one of basketball's rare feats, a four-point play, Williams rose to the occasion when all the pressure in the world was on his shoulders.
Williams loves to have the ball in his hands when the game is on the line, and even though he has struggled on a few occasions from the free throw line in the waning moments of games, his difficulties from the charity stripe are not the reason that Duke lost certain games. Against Florida State Jan. 6, a contest Duke lost 77-76, Williams was the only Blue Devil to rise against the Seminoles' attack, hitting 8-of-12 three-point shots in an otherwise dismal performance by a team that was overconfident in its pursuit of an unblemished season.
Like the circumstances surrounding the Indiana game last week and the team's loss to Virginia Feb. 28, Williams' actions were not what did Duke in, but rather, what kept the Blue Devils in the ballgame. If Williams had not had the courage to take the ball in his hands, then he wouldn't have even been in the position to take the only shot in the game that people will ultimately remember, the final free throw.
How people can overlook that fact is beyond me, but in most of the discussions I've had following the game, my friends and colleagues have put their sole focus on the missed free throw, not what led up to it.
But I prefer to remember Williams as someone who had the guts to be held accountable for his team's losses, someone who never shied away from stepping up, even if his God-given skills could not carry him to where he wanted to go.
I predict that Williams, having rare athletic ability, solid skills, a high basketball IQ and, most importantly, an unmatched competitive drive, will get over his free throw shooting difficulties and be the best Duke player in the history of the NBA. A sturdy backbone and a healthy heart are precious qualities, and these are the attributes that come to mind when I think about this year's national player of the year.
Craig Saperstein is a Trinity senior and sports editor of The Chronicle.
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