No matter who starts or who finishes, Duke is finding ways to win in NCAA tournament
More often than not, by the time March rolls around, college basketball coaches have landed on substitution patterns with lineups and roles cemented.
That regimen is regularly a hallmark of successful teams.
No. 9 Duke, now one win away from the Final Four, represents a different approach.
The Blue Devils finished off NCAA tournament wins over the past week with one finishing five against Michigan State on Sunday, and a different group against Texas Tech on Thursday night.
They’ve alternated big men Mark Williams and Theo John regularly this season, but have also gone with their smaller “ball-handling” lineup with both of those centers on the bench.
Throughout all the changes, and some tough, late-game losses that dotted the regular season, the team is playing its best basketball when the highest stakes are in play here in the NCAA tournament. It’s a testament to the cohesion this team — put together for one season that happens to be the last for their retiring Hall of Fame coach — has forged.
“They are really a good group of kids, and they’re becoming men,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said Friday, the day before Duke faced Arkansas in the NCAA tournament’s West Regional final at Chase Center. “They’ve been really good, and for me to have that group in this final year for me, I think I’m very thankful for that.”
That togetherness and trust paid off last Sunday in the second round when starting small forward A.J. Griffin sprained an ankle in the second half against Michigan State with the game’s outcome, and the fate of Duke’s season, in the balance. He went to the sideline for treatment, replaced by part-time starter Trevor Keels. Instead of feeling uncertain, Duke closed the game on a 20-6 run, hitting its final five shots from the field to win 85-76.
Keels hit the 3-pointer that tied the game at 72 during that surge.
On Thursday night in the Sweet 16 against Arkansas, Griffin was healthy and back in the starting lineup. Once again, Duke needed a strong finishing kick. This time, Keels was on the bench for all but 12 seconds of the game’s final 10:17.
Three guys who have started every game — Paolo Banchero, Wendell Moore and Mark Williams — were joined by sophomore guard Jeremy Roach and Griffin. Duke made its final eight shots, not missing in the game’s final 8:53 to rally and win, 78-73.
“It can be tough at times,” Duke associate head coach Jon Scheyer said, “because we have more than five players who have won games for us, who can really help us down the stretch. If you look at the entire season, it’s been different guys stepping out the different moments. And so when you talk about it as coaches, you always talk about everybody being ready. It’s it’s true for this group is any.”
Krzyzewski and his staff have used three different starting lineups this season. The first 14 games, it included Banchero, Moore, Williams, Roach and Keels.
The next group replaced Roach with Griffin. A third lineup, necessitated when Keels suffered a calf muscle injury to his right leg in January, re-insterted Roach to go with Banchero, Moore, Williams and Griffin.
That second lineup — Keels, Griffin, Banchero, Moore and Williams — started Duke’s three ACC tournament games. But Krzyzewski made a change for the NCAA tournament, removing Keels and starting Roach again.
The finishing group against Michigan State was Duke’s original starting five. Against Texas Tech, it was that second lineup.
It doesn’t seem to bother anyone on Duke’s bench.
“The main thing is everybody who steps on the floor it’s all about winning,” Moore said. “None of us have our own personal agendas. When we’re on the floor, we all just want to win. So that’s really what’s been showing in these close games these past five-minute games we’ve been showing, it’s really just our will to win.”
That chemistry began last summer when Moore, Roach, Keels, Williams and Banchero twice made the four hour, 30 minute drive from Durham to North Augusta, South Carolina, to watch their former summer-league teams play at the Nike Peach Jam event.
But it didn’t stop there. Throughout the season, the players regularly get together for meetings without their coaches. Moore and senior Joey Baker, the team’s co-captains, did most of the talking at first. But that’s changed as the season has progressed.
“Now everybody has a voice,” Moore said. “That’s something that we’ve been stressing all year. If you have something to say, say it in the moment because you never get that moment back to say it again.”
That kind of real talk permeates up and down the 14-player roster. The Blue Devils believe, and their play of late shows, it has made them a better team no matter who is on the court and who is on the bench.
“It’s a great culture,” Roach said. “This is probably one of the best teams I’ve been on just camaraderie wise. We get alone so well. Like coach says, we have six starters.”
Just because one player starts one game, and another one helps finishes off a win, the Blue Devils have found ways for that not to cause a fractured locker room. The egos, it appears, are under control as everyone finds a way to be at their best.
It all stems, Moore said, from those regular team gatherings.
“Everybody’s been I mean just growing ever since that,” Moore said. “For A.J., it’s been talking. For Jeremy, it’s been his leadership. For Mark, he’s been really just aggressive in a simpler way. For P (Paolo), it’s been just playing instinctually and not thinking about too many things. Just everybody. It’s made us become one of the better basketball teams in the country today.”
This story was originally published March 25, 2022 at 10:00 PM.