The last time Duke and Arizona met, the Blue Devils came away with an 82-72 victory to earn head coach Mike Krzyzewski his third national title.
Today, the two teams meet again in the West Regional semifinal in Anaheim, Calif., at 9:45 p.m. with a place in the Elite Eight at stake.
The ten years since that loss have not been good ones by the lofty standards of the Wildcats, a former basketball powerhouse under the reign of Hall of Famer Lute Olson. In 2009-10, head coach Sean Miller’s first year, the team finished only one game over .500 and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 24 years.
But behind the stellar play of sophomore Derrick Williams, a 6-foot-8 forward whose athleticism and 3-point accuracy have NBA scouts salivating, Arizona won the Pac-10 regular season championship this season and advanced to the conference tournament championship game.
In the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend, Williams, the Pac-10 Player of the Year, led Arizona to heart-stopping victories over Memphis and Texas with key plays in the last 10 seconds of each game. Against Memphis, Williams sealed the Wildcats victory with a game-saving block on the Tigers’ Wesley Witherspoon. Against the Longhorns, Williams again came through by converting a three-point play on a drive to the basket to give Arizona the win and its second ticket to the Sweet 16 in the past three years. But Williams, who Krzyzewski considers one of the best players in the country, is not the Wildcats’ only threat.
“We appear to be a one-man team,” Arizona head coach Sean Miller said. “[But] you can’t win 29 games and be where we’re at if that’s the case.”
The Wildcats lack other big names but are stocked with capable shooters and stand at eleventh in the country in three-point percentage. Their depth—they’ve played at least 10 players in every one of their games—allows them to take advantage of a good night from anyone of their role players. Most recently, forward Solomon Hill and guard Lamont Jones have come up strong for the Wildcats, with Hill scoring 16 points against Texas and Jones dropping 18 against Memphis.
For Duke, much of this week’s media attention has focused on the return of freshman Kyrie Irving. Irving played last weekend after missing three months with a serious toe injury, and while he was on the court for significant minutes in both of the Blue Devils’ Tournament wins, questions remain about whether his role on the team will interfere with existing chemistry.
But nobody on the Duke sideline has expressed any doubt that his return will be anything other than an enormous boon.
“You get better if you add talent, as long as it doesn’t hurt chemistry.... We’ve kept up, pretty much, our chemistry,” Krzyzewski said. “The other thing is, he’s really good.... He’s not at the level he was when he got hurt, but the guys know he’s good, so they want him.”
Irving, who was able to penetrate almost at will before his injury, could be crucial against an Arizona team that plays excellent defense along the perimeter—holding opponents under 30 percent from behind the arc—but has had trouble containing quick guards like Washington’s Isaiah Thomas, who burned the Wildcats’ defense for an average of 20.3 points and nine assists in their three matchups this season.
If Irving has recovered enough of his quickness to drive to the basket, this could be a good matchup for the Blue Devils. And if Duke is able to slow the Wildcats on defense and bring its offense into the paint, the result of the game against Arizona could look a whole lot like the last one.
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