Quinn Cook stuck around campus in the summer to get in shape for his last season in a Duke uniform, working on strength, speed and endurance. It paid off—the regular season marathon was the captain's best to date, posting career-highs in points per game, field goal percentage and 3-point shooting playing opposite floor general Tyus Jones.
Now, with the sprint to the Final Four about to start, Cook and his teammates have saved something extra for the stretch run.
At 29-4, Duke has looked dominant for much of the regular season, but the in-game success has not come without major adjustments on and off the court. Midseason roster shakeups and late-season injuries have forced head coach Mike Krzyzewski—known for his difficult practices—to tweak the routine to keep his players fresh throughout the regular season.
"A big thing for me [this season] is I’ve had to really tone down the practices," Krzyzewski said after Duke's win at Virginia Tech Feb. 25. "We’re in it for the long haul, and we have to do those things."
The December departure of sophomore Semi Ojeleye to Southern Methodist—the third Blue Devil to transfer in the past four seasons—left Duke with just nine eligible scholarship players. Just more than a month later, the dismissal of junior guard Rasheed Sulaimon trimmed that number to eight.
Ankle injuries to a slew of Blue Devils—Cook, Grayson Allen and star center Jahlil Okafor among them—only heightened the importance of using practice time smartly. Cook compared the situation to his sophomore year, when seniors Seth Curry and Ryan Kelly were hampered by injuries for much of the season but still helped lead the team to the Elite Eight.
"We don't have as much contact at practice anymore and practices aren't as long. It's hard because you don't really have days in between [games]...so you can only go so hard," assistant head coach Jon Scheyer said before Duke's Feb. 7 game at Florida State. "We've tried to really balance being prepared but also not overworking or still being fresh. That's a fine line and we've tried to do that and really keep the amount of contact down."
The shrinking roster forced reserves Allen and Matt Jones into the spotlight, and both have come on strong in the team's past 13 games. Jones' scoring has nearly doubled in Sulaimon's absence, averaging 8.2 points per game since Jan. 31 and stepping into the starting lineup in place of junior captain Amile Jefferson for the last seven games.
"I just knew that I had to take what I'd done and take it to a higher level. I've been trying to do that since day one. Coach has been behind me and the players have been behind me, so it's been a great atmosphere," Jones said of his increased role before the Blue Devils hosted Syracuse Feb. 28. "I told myself that it was my moment now and I had to just take advantage of it."
Allen did not play at Wisconsin, at Louisville or at Notre Dame, but, like Jones, appears to be growing in confidence as the postseason ramps up. The Jacksonville, Fla., native has scored more than five points just four times since the start of conference play, with three of those outings coming after the calendar flipped to March. His 27-point barrage to fuel Duke's rout of Wake Forest March 4 was exactly the sort of offensive outburst fans had been waiting for, and his ability to contribute consistently off the bench alongside Jefferson and center Marshall Plumlee will be critical for a deep postseason run.
Roles in practice have changed as well. With the eight eligible scholarship players and transfer Sean Obi, the Blue Devils still needed a final player on the floor on the occasions when five-on-five makes an appearance on Krzyzewski's practice plan. Enter walk-ons Nick Pagliuca and Sean Kelly.
"Having Nick and Sean involved, really they do a really good job, they play their roles," Scheyer said. "It's allowed guys like Matt and Grayson, they've had the ball in their hands more [and so have] other guys like Sean Obi, Marshall. They've been able to work on their games, so that's been really good for them to take control of that."
By toning down practice, Krzyzewski acknowledged that "slippage" can happen, particularly on the defensive end, as was the case against the last-place Hokies, who took the Blue Devils to the wire before falling in overtime.
The Blue Devils rank 58th in basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy's defensive efficiency rating, and will likely need to slow down some prolific offenses if they hope to reach Indianapolis the Final Four for the first time since cutting down the nets in the same city in 2010.
"[In practice] we don't have that many numbers, so obviously we try to conserve as much energy as possible. So in the games we tend to go back kind of [lackadaisically]," Jones said. "We have to fight human nature as a team, and make sure everyone is emotionally involved in the game."
Emotional involvement is Cook's forte. The captain has led by example all season, firing up crowds and teammates alike with his fiery persona on the court. The short bench has meant more and more minutes for the floor general, who in one five-game February stretch played four complete games—two of which went to overtime—and sat just one minute in the fifth.
Cook plays the fourth-most minutes per game of any player in the South region at 35.7 per game, with Tyus Jones not far behind. The senior has said he rarely feels tired after games, which is good news for Duke—a deep Blue Devil run will require Cook to play plenty of high-quality minutes.
And although the team's four freshmen—half of Duke's scholarship players—are making their NCAA tournament debuts, they'll already be well-accustomed to the energy-saving practice schedule built to accommodate the harsh realities of two-game weekends in the postseason.
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