INDIANAPOLIS — Brian Zoubek stood by himself, 15 feet from the hoop, holding in his hand both a Wilson regulation ball and the hopes and dreams of his entire team.
Up one on a Butler team that just wouldn’t quit, Zoubek pounded the ball once, twice to his right side. He raised it up. Good.
His next shot was a different story. Under direction from head coach Mike Krzyzewski to miss on purpose, he shot long, but hit the perfect spot on the back-iron.
“I’m a good free throw shooter, and I practice that [situation] all the time,” he said. “I just had to look at my teammates, and I knew I couldn’t mess up.”
Butler star Gordon Hayward snagged the rebound with three seconds left, sprinted to the right side of the court and heaved up that shot that almost made him a hero. In and out.
His miss solidified Zoubek’s position in Duke lore. His free throws, and perhaps more importantly, his defensive performance and rebounding prowess in the final minutes—while playing with four fouls—were some of the main reasons Duke won its fourth national title.
“I’m just glad Zoubek was a part of [the win]. I just think that’s such a great story,” Krzyzewski said. “I’ve tried to downplay it throughout because I didn’t want him to get satisfied, but Zoubek’s story is unbelievable.… He’s just elevated our team [and gave] us a chance to win this thing.”
Zoubek is the senior that was never supposed to be here, winning the game when earlier in his career, he couldn’t have imagined being in that type of crunch-time situation. After breaking his foot twice and having what Krzyzewski called an “injury-marred career,” Zoubek could never have seen this day coming.
“It’s really hard to imagine being in this position when you spend two summers on crutches,” Zoubek said. “People around me just kept telling me, ‘Keep going at it, just keep fighting.’ It’s hard to believe them sometimes, that good things are actually going to happen.”
Zoubek broke his fifth metatarsal in his left foot in the summer of 2007, forcing him on crutches until the fall. He broke his left foot again in a practice in January 2008, and he underwent painful surgery and rehab to try to fix the shattered bones. While in the rotation for his junior year, he was often a nonfactor. That didn’t change for the most part at the beginning of this year.
He finally cracked the starting lineup for good against Maryland Feb. 16, scoring 16 points in a tremendous performance.
From that game on, Duke went 15-1. A great deal of it was because of the job Zoubek did on the glass and on defense—with him, the Blue Devils’ possession was never over just because of a missed outside shot. With him, their post defense was never a problem when faced with a strong, disruptive big man.
The senior found it appropriate that his post defense played such a large role in the win.
Although Hayward’s last shot will get all the attention, it was his miss with seven seconds left, when Zoubek guarded the sophomore to perfection, that was crucial to the victory.
On Butler’s grinding and nervewracking second-to-last trip, featuring two timeouts and a near-interception by Zoubek at the 14-second mark, it all came down to Hayward with the ball on the left baseline. He had an open look, but Zoubek was able to contest the shot and put his 260-pound body on him, forcing a fadeaway jumper. The ball went long, and Zoubek grabbed the rebound before being fouled and making that free throw.
“I think it was fitting that defense [on that shot] won us this,” Zoubek said. “We didn’t really have team defense the whole game, and they were pretty much getting whatever they wanted. We knew… we had to lock down there.”
At the end of the game, after cannons of confetti shot off and the bench rushed the court, Krzyzewski grabbed Zoubek by the shoulders, jumping up to pat him on the head. After the pain and the heartache and the trial of a tough career, Zoubek had found a storybook ending.
“My senior year, my last game, my birthday—what more can you ask for?”
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