Another Coach K send-off ends in defeat as Duke unable to rise to the moment in Brooklyn
There was confetti in the air in the colors of the newly crowned ACC champion, not for the first time in Mike Krzyzewski’s career but certainly the last. Pieces of it stuck to his chest and left shoulder. They were orange, not blue.
The wrong color, the wrong finish, and maybe the wrong team to carry the weight that has been placed upon it.
Twice, Duke has gone into what were supposed to be stirring send-offs at the end of a legendary coaching career and been completely unable to rise to the moment. The loss to North Carolina at Cameron was the original sin. After leaving Brooklyn empty-handed, the Blue Devils are running out of chances to redeem themselves.
There’s only one way now, and it’s a national title. That’s all that’s left. Six wins. A sixth banner.
If Duke had won that final home game, had managed to beat Virginia Tech in Brooklyn on Saturday, maybe that wouldn’t be such an imperative. But there’s precious little time left, ticking away fast, and the Blue Devils are not exactly headed in the right direction.
Everything’s gone sour at the end of this Duke season, going off the rails at the moments that should have been the most memorable. They’re all living a nightmare, unable to live up to the expectations placed upon them, losing a basketball championship to a seventh-seeded football school that imported its coach and half its roster from Wofford and won the ACC three years later.
At a certain point, that goes beyond being the players’ fault. They might not be ready for this, but they didn’t choose this, either. They committed to Duke before Krzyzewski announced this would be his final season. He chose them for this mission. They didn’t volunteer.
Since the North Carolina loss, the Blue Devils look lost. They had been rolling along until then, certainly not perfect but fully playing their role in this retirement tour, beating Kentucky at Madison Square Garden in the first of the lasts. But in the searing heat of the last UNC game, they wavered. Every game in the ACC tournament was an adventure, two narrow wins and a disheartening loss, unable to get a stop when it mattered.
Duke looks cleansed of confidence, shorn of swagger, bereft of belief. In each of these games in Brooklyn the Blue Devils were a convincing favorite that played like an underdog, allowing inferior opponents to impose their styles upon them.
Just as Armando Bacot sealed North Carolina’s win in Durham with an authoritative dunk, Justyn Mutts did the same Saturday, slamming the ball down on Paolo Banchero, sending Banchero tumbling awkwardly to the floor as Mutts stared him down.
Which of these teams was the No. 1 seed? Which of them is supposed to be the national title contender with the five first-round picks on the roster? You’d never know watching Hunter Cattoor bang in seven 3-pointers or Keve Aluma dominate the boards or Storm Murphy manipulate the Blue Devils on the perimeter or Mutts disrespectfully dunk on Banchero.
“I think we’re a lot more mature team,” Duke’s Wendell Moore said in the aftermath. “Even you saw last Saturday how young we were. I feel like this week we’ve really grown up. Over the past few days we had a couple meetings, a lot of hard practices, and it kind of turned us into men over the past couple days. I know we fell short tonight, but that doesn’t…”
Krzyzewski cut him off: “Let me talk. These kids have done a great job. We start three freshmen. Two of them are 18 years old. They’ve won 28 games. They’ve won the regular season, and they’re going to be a top-three seed somewhere, two or three seed. Come on. They’ve had a fantastic year. I’m proud of them.”
But this team also embraced higher expectations, entirely justified by its collection of raw talent, that it has failed to meet. It’s not too late. Six wins, and all of this is forgotten. These games left are the only ones that matter, but there are few of them and no margin for error.
A team that has struggled to rise to the moment is running out of moments. The end nears, one way or another, and there’s only one correct color of confetti.
This story was originally published March 13, 2022 at 12:43 AM with the headline "Another Coach K send-off ends in defeat as Duke unable to rise to the moment in Brooklyn."
