Greg Paulus and the Blue Devils cannot be blamed for getting a feeling of déjà vu as the buzzer sounded on their season Thursday night.
It was the same situation in which Duke had found itself on the first Thursday in February at Virginia. Just like in the Blue Devils' season-ending loss to VCU, Paulus' last-second three fell harmlessly to the floor, resulting in a heartbreaking loss for Duke.
The two images of Paulus-devastated after losses to two Virginia schools-encapsulate Duke's season and stand as the bookends to a tumultuous six weeks that eventually ended with the Blue Devils' earliest exit from the NCAA Tournament in 11 seasons.
The overtime loss to the Cavaliers started a four-game losing streak that pushed Duke into the middle of the ACC standings. The loss to the Rams in the first round of the NCAA Tournament capped a second four-game losing streak-this one pushing the Blue Devils into a long offseason.
"This is the hardest loss I've ever had," freshman Jon Scheyer said after the VCU game. "Obviously, it's not an easy way to lose at any point in the season, especially not in the last game."
It is fitting that Duke's struggles in the final moments of that game ended its season prematurely. All year long, an inability to pull out close games defined the Blue Devils.
"We just didn't do the tough things down the stretch," junior DeMarcus Nelson said last Thursday.
Nelson could have been talking about any of the 11 games Duke lost this season, the most defeats for a Blue Devil team since 1996-which was also the last time the team failed to win a postseason game.
In every loss-even the four games Duke dropped by double digits-the Blue Devils had their chances in the final 10 minutes. But offensive droughts and a lack of timely defensive stops cost Duke repeatedly.
The offense had shouldered the blame throughout much of the season, as field goal droughts at inopportune times cost the Blue Devils in games against Marquette and Virginia among others.
In the final four games, however, it was the defense that let Duke down. After giving up 59.0 points per game through the first 29 contests of the year, the Blue Devils allowed an average of 83.8 points in the final four games of the season.
In its postseason losses to N.C. State and VCU, Duke was particularly incapable of coming up with stops at the end of the game. The Wolfpack scored on every possession in overtime in its 85-80 upset of the Blue Devils in the first round of the ACC Tournament, exploiting Duke's lack of depth on the interior.
The Rams, meanwhile, scored on their final five possessions to knock the Blue Devils out of the NCAA Tournament. VCU point guard Eric Maynor scored six of those points, including the game-winning jumper with 1.8 seconds left.
Maynor, like Sean Singletary before him, came through in the clutch when Duke could not.
The Blue Devils, however, would not have been in that situation if they had not surrendered a 13-point lead. In fact, Duke had let a 13-point lead slip away in the loss to Virginia, as well. For the season, the Blue Devils lost four games in which they held a double-digit lead.
"We have to put teams away and protect our leads," sophomore Josh McRoberts said after the Virginia loss in February. "We were up [13] at some point and we let them back into it. When you put yourselves in that position, bad things are going to happen, and that's what happened to us."
Many of Duke's struggles can be attributed to the team's youth. Nelson was the only upperclassmen to receive substantial playing time, and the team relied heavily on its freshman class. Although that inexperience showed in some of the season's most crucial moments, the Blue Devils plan to build upon this year's foundation for 2007-08-starting with the memory of their most painful defeats.
"You hope that everything you do that didn't turn out as well as you would have liked, you can use as a source of motivation," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "Our kids have always been wanting to get better, so we use an experience like this. And it hurts. When you lose in the last few seconds, after playing so hard all game, it's not an easy thing to forget. I think we should use it as a motivation to get better, so that's what we'll use it as."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.