In the locker room after Duke's loss to North Carolina March 4, J.J. Redick walked from the shower over to his locker. He reached into a cabinet, picked up a bottle of soap and walked back over to the shower area.
By the time he got back, the media horde was already lined up two deep around Redick's chair, even though the senior's teammates were available for interviews in other parts of the room. The travelling press circus parted to allow Redick to pass through, allowed him to dress and then descended.
Six television cameras recorded the action from directly in front of Redick, three cameramen kneeling and three standing behind them. More than 20 reporters leaned in, trying to get a microphone in the superstar guard's face and interrupting each other to get a question in.
Redick sat in the middle, the lights from the cameras in his eyes, trying to make sense in a public forum of Duke's second-straight loss and his fourth-straight poor shooting game.
For J.J. Redick, this is life.
The type of season Redick is having-for the type of team he plays for-has caused the media crush he faces every day. But being the anointed one, ranked among the all-time greats on television every day, comes with its own set of pressures. That pressure can-perhaps-throw off something as delicate as a jumpshot.
And when the jumper stops falling, or the team stops winning, that just makes the horde hungrier for answers.
"There's always pressure from media attention, from family, friends," Redick said. "When you play here, when you play at a big-time program in college basketball, you're always in a fishbowl. The past couple of weeks, I haven't even been able to watch ESPN. It just drives me crazy. I don't want to watch college basketball. I don't want to watch SportsCenter and see NBA highlights. They can't stop talking about us or me. Give it a rest for a couple of days."
The recent media focus on Redick is nothing new. As an All-American returning to the preseason national title favorite, he has faced it since the beginning of the year.
But when the senior guard broke the NCAA career three-pointers record and the Duke and ACC career scoring records in a span of four games in late February, the media demands intensified.
Meanwhile, Redick's game declined-he shot just 28.8 percent in the four games after breaking the Duke scoring record, including 22.2 percent from long distance.
"J.J. was emotioned out," Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "He needed to get past all that, it was just a lot.
"I've seen it with a lot of guys and because it doesn't happen [often] you don't understand the complete impact."
Now that he's past his record-breaking stretch and past the part of the season where Duke's-and his-championship merits can only be debated on television, the task for Redick is to move on.
"My confidence or whatever swagger I play with, it's not that it's shaken," Redick said. "I just think I put a lot of pressure on myself, I feel a lot of pressure from outside sources, and it hasn't been fun for me.
"Really, we just need to have fun, and I think the ACC Tournament, for our team, can get us headed in the right direction."
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