When North Carolina's players and coaches left the RBC Center playing court after an easy opening-round win over Mount St. Mary's on Friday, the NCAA Tournament seemed to be breaking the ACC's way.

Of the four teams in the field, none had lost.

Less than 24 hours later, the tournament was breaking the league's back.

First Clemson, then Duke, were punched out with surprising ease by what amounted to a couple of Big East middleweights -- Villanova and West Virginia.

Other than the seedings designations, No. 5 Clemson and No. 12 Villanova in the Midwest Regional -- it hardly ranks as a surprise that the Tigers didn't have the poise to survive the first round.

Although Oliver Purnell has the program inching along, Clemson hadn't been in the NCAA Tournament since 1998. Some degree of stage fright was understandable.

That was not the situation with Duke. The second-seeded Blue Devils' 73-67 second-round West Regional loss to the No. 7 Mountaineers in Washington was every bit as baffling and disturbing as getting outplayed by Belmont in the first round.

It's a rare day when a Mike Krzyzewski team digresses in February and March. Yet, that is exactly what happened to this team and the Devils of 2006-07.

Both Duke teams were young, but that's not an acceptable explanation. Young is what college basketball generally has become. Almost every team with national recruiting clout is young. In itself, youth doesn't explain Duke's first-round ACC Tournament loss to N.C. State and an ensuing first-round NCAA loss to Virginia Commonwealth last season, any more than it explains an ACC semifinal loss to Clemson and the second-round loss to West Virginia.

What happened to the Blue Devils on Saturday wasn't merely a loss. It was more like a collapse. For most of the second half, Duke just could not compete offensively. The effort, as Krzyzewski pointed out in his postgame remarks, was reasonable. But the offensive execution was so bad that the once feared Blue Devils didn't remotely resemble the team that had played so well in early and midseason.

At the end, the Devils didn't so much look young -- or tired -- as they did small, slow, hesitant and totally void of shooting confidence. With the Mountaineers in immediate foul trouble and groping for continuity early in the game, the Duke teams of years past would have won by 20 points Saturday.

But Duke, for now, is simply not what Duke once was. That can no longer be a matter of serious debate. Something is missing. That something is leadership. The talent level has slipped some, sure. But even Christian Laettner himself -- or even Bob Hurley and Shane Battier -- never were so innately talented that they could get by on natural skills alone. They led by intensity -- a fat lip, a bruised elbow or an angry glare at a younger teammate who failed to chase down a loose ball or block out properly for a rebound.

It's not a lack of interest or program pride, of course. DeMarcus Nelson wanted to lead this team, and did for a while. Greg Paulus wants to lead and sophomore Gerald Henderson is a good bet to lead at some point. But the chain of on-the-court program ownership has been broken. There's no genuine roster link to the glory days, and it shows.

The same problem beset North Carolina in the late 1970s, when the Tar Heels lost their first NCAA game three successive years -- 1978, '79 and '80. Dean Smith countered by signing not only better talent, but tougher, smarter players who could lead as one or within a unit -- James Worthy, Sam Perkins and Michael Jordan being all three, and Jim Black and Matt Doherty being the latter two.

The learning curve was longer in those days, when the best players stayed on campus longer. The foundational philosophy hasn't changed, though.

Krzyzewski is plenty bright enough to grasp his dilemma. He knows the best way to get back is by going back. He needs a little more quickness and size, but the most pressing need is for leadership -- a Chris Duhon here and a Nate James there.

How quickly Krzyzewski solves his problem will determine how much national impact the ACC can recover. Expansion has damaged the league's basketball programs far more than anyone could have imagined, but not to the extent that the basic formula for greatness has changed. Until another program proves that it can step up -- Miami is the only NCAA alternative entering today -- the ACC is still a North Carolina/Duke equation. The Tar Heels may still make it work, but Duke has lost its way.