As Duke tries to win 16th ACC title under Coach K, he doesn’t want to be ‘distraction’
It’s going to be hard to get this toothpaste back in the tube, having been allowed to flow and flow and flow ahead of Mike Krzyzewski’s final Cameron home game, to the point where his team seemed to get their feet stuck in it.
Duke will try to deliver Krzyzewski’s 16th ACC and final title on Saturday, and he’s back to hoping no one will notice the second part of it.
“I’m trying to get away from all that,” Krzyzewski said after Friday’s 80-76 win over Miami. “It’s really too much. It’s their season. So it’s all about them. It really is. I don’t want to be a distraction to them. This is their season. Especially now.”
That Duke is even still around to play for a title served to reinforce two different notions: Not only has Duke started to figure out some of its late-game issues, Duke may also have shook off the emotional hangover of losing a game it couldn’t possibly afford to lose. And really, it’s probably hard to separate the two.
Duke seemed to wilt under the pressure of that moment, and hadn’t yet recovered by the time it arrived in Brooklyn. After Mark Williams admitted Thursday that thoughts of the UNC loss were crossing his mind as Duke struggled against Syracuse, Krzyzewski tried Friday to again dial back talk of his impending departure, as he had early in the season but not in the run-up to his final home game at Cameron. Perhaps, under those circumstances, it would have been impossible.
But there’s no question there had been a change in tone as that night approached. After downplaying all of this all season, Krzyzewski was more willing that week to openly entertain the emotions of the moment and permit all the planning that went into a ceremony that ended up with a very different timbre and mood than anyone had expected. There was no contingency plan for failure.
It was an indulgence he now appears to regret. As the championship now looms, perhaps even the rematch against the Tar Heels that Duke so desperately wants in this season that pivoted so suddenly from acclimation to atonement, Krzyzewski is now trying to get his team back in the moment, to borrow from his own parlance.
It’s difficult to imagine the spotlight being more on him than it was last Saturday, but it’s equally a reality that it’s only going to get more intense the more Duke wins.
“Especially towards the end, it started being my farewell thing, which I don’t want,” Krzyzewski said. “It comes about. It sells tickets, but I don’t want it. I just want them to win because it’s my only shot with them.”
However that plays out Saturday, his team certainly seems to have recovered at least some of its mojo. It did avoid disaster against Syracuse with a furious rally in the final two minutes, and the Blue Devils had absolutely no room for error against a fearless Miami team that asked everything of Duke and constantly found ways to maroon Williams in bad matchups on the perimeter.
When pressed, Paolo Banchero and AJ Griffin and Wendell Moore all took opportunities to take control of the game, imposing their considerable talent on the proceedings in turn. And in the end game, Duke made all the right plays, whether that was Banchero grabbing the crucial rebound of a missed free throw or not fouling Miami’s shooters with a lead late, the error that tripped up the Blue Devils at home in January.
“Plays like that show our growth as a team,” Williams said. “There were those moments where we didn’t make those plays or didn’t convert, but now later in the season, we’re making those plays, making the right decisions or whatever it may be.”
“A couple weeks ago, I said I wish they would be smarter,” Krzyzewski said. “The last two games they’ve been very smart. They’ve been really smart.”
Given the uncertainty in which Duke has floated aimlessly since losing the one game it absolutely could not lose, these are all positive developments for the Blue Devils. And whether it’s against North Carolina or Virginia Tech, winning an ACC championship is their first chance at redemption.
This story was originally published March 11, 2022 at 10:41 PM.
