It caught up with the Devils on Saturday when seventh-seeded West Virginia slowed down and beat Duke, the No. 2 seed, 73-67 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at the Verizon Center.

Duke (28-6) is now dealing with two outcomes -- going home and bidding adieu to senior DeMarcus Nelson.

"Our ultimate goal was the NCAA title, not to get to the second round and lose," Duke guard Jon Scheyer said after scoring 15 points in the loss.

Instead, the Mountaineers (26-10) advance to play No. 3 seed Xavier in the NCAA West Regional semifinals on Thursday in Phoenix.

The Devils were down because they had a handle on the game and a lead until early in the second half when the Mountaineers made their big move.

West Virginia began to hit the 3-pointers that had served the team well in a win over Arizona on Thursday but had escaped the Mountaineers (0-for-6) in the first half against Duke.

With just more than 15 minutes left in the game, WVU guard Alex Ruoff attempted a 3-pointer over Scheyer's outstretched arms with the shot clock ticking down from 1 to 0.

"I didn't care if the shot clock ran off in the second half, I was still going to follow through and get my shot up," Ruoff said, remembering one he had rushed when WVU trailed in the first half.

"It felt good."

That 3 cut Duke at the knees. WVU star Joe Alexander dropped a 3 about two minutes later. Alexander's trey, for three of his 22 points, gave the Mountaineers the lead for good at 43-40.

Duke, a team that had feasted on open 3s this season, kept shooting them and kept missing them, trying to get back in the game. The Devils missed seven in a row before Duke guard Gerald Henderson hit one with 1:55 left to cut WVU's lead from 14 to 11 points.

There was no way the Blue Devils, who have wanted to play fast all year long, were going to be able to get that precious half-step on the Mountaineers to break toward their own goal without rebounding the ball.

Duke scored zero fastbreak points in the game, and West Virginia grabbed 47 rebounds -- including 19 on the offensive glass -- to Duke's 27.

"It was a physical game, but we couldn't go quick because we couldn't secure the ball," said Henderson, who led Duke with 18 points and had 39 in two NCAA games. "We're not going to fastbreak just off the score."

There was no clearer sign that the Devils were playing on borrowed time and tired legs than the fact that they shot 5-for-22 from 3-point range, and the misses often hit the front end of the rim.

Duke played fine in the first half, leading 34-29, although the Mountaineers had 11 more shots in the half. Duke junior Greg Paulus, who finished with 13 points, and Scheyer combined for 16 points in the opening half.

No one was in foul trouble, and Duke was getting key minutes and defense on Alexander from junior David McClure.

The real problem was that the Devils weren't connecting on offense, assisting on just four of 10 buckets. Duke needed to move the ball to force the Mountaineers to move. Instead, the Devils had to attack off the dribble and create their own shots.

Duke shot 19-for-50 from the field, and there was no following their own shots against a taller WVU lineup.

Duke also had trouble pushing the pace because WVU coach Bob Huggins also decided to play two point guards in Darris Nichols and Joe Mazzulla -- a move that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski would later praise -- to handle Duke's tight perimeter defense.

Duke forced 17 WVU turnovers, but Mazzulla stayed active all game long, scoring 13 points with 11 rebounds and eight assists.

It was too obvious in the second half that Krzyzewski, sick himself with some sort of cold-flu bug, also was tapping a dry well.

To a man, the Devils denied being tired or sick, but Kyle Singler, a talented inside-outside offensive player who was the ACC Rookie of the Year, faded late in the season after months of guarding the biggest opposing post player.

"Yeah I feel like I could have contributed to the team a lot more," said Singler, who averaged double figures in scoring but shot just three times on Saturday. "That's one of the reasons I feel the way I do [right now]."

Nelson definitively said he was not ill on Saturday. The coughing he's been doing for the past three weeks suggested otherwise, though Paulus said, "he'd never use that as a crutch or an excuse."

Nelson hasn't been the same player since a loss to North Carolina on March 8. He exited the college stage quietly, scoring 10 points in two NCAA games.

As the postgame crowd thinned in the Duke locker room after the loss, Paulus was asked to look ahead to next season.

"I'm not even thinking like that right now," he said. "I'm just trying to share more moments with these guys. It's been a fun year. It's been a good year. I just wish we could do it one more time."

The Devils have held fast to those ideas: Stick together. Make no excuses. So 28 wins, six wins better than a year ago, looked fine to Krzyzewski.

"That's a great season," Krzyzewski said. "I told our kids afterwards, the last game you always have to look at the full body of work. ... This team was a lot of fun and great to work with. ..."