INDIANAPOLIS -- Before Grayson Allen forever etched his name into college basketball lore, before Tyus Jones drilled a three-pointer from the top of the key to give Duke its first lead of the second half with four minutes to play, and before Jahlil Okafor’s father started a literal parade down the moonlit streets of Indianapolis, Duke came to the Final Four as a team that appeared best suited to play the foil.
Duke was too talented to fail
The stars were aligned for the Blue Devils all season, even if it took until the last game of the year for everyone to realize it.
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
Duke was loaded with blue chip recruits and one-and-done NBA Draft picks, but its players weren’t as good as Kentucky’s. Duke’s roster was comprised of likable, humble stars, but they weren’t as charismatic or outwardly endearing as Wisconsin’s. Duke was led by arguably the best coach of the modern era, but Mike Krzyzewski didn’t receive the same public adulation shared by Michigan State’s Tom Izzo.
It put Duke in a strange spot -- a team that was great without being particularly compelling, a roster that was personable and polite without winning over many new fans. At no point during the year did it feel like Duke had the story that would come to define the season. Search too hard for something and you might just miss what was under your nose the entire time.
When Badgers senior guard Josh Gasser found Badgers senior center Frank Kaminsky cutting across the lane for a layup, Wisconsin held a nine-point lead with just over 13 minutes left. Lucas Oil Stadium was a flowing, vibrant sea of red. The opening chords of House of Pain’s “Jump Around” came on during a television timeout and it felt like Indianapolis bounced up and down in unison.
It was set up for the storybook finish most of America wanted. Wisconsin's upperclassmen would conquer another blue blood NBA halfway house. The postseason celebration would be filled with inside jokes and sly innuendo. The ideal of the blue collar basketball player would be exalted. This was a Badgers team that was so irresistible even Krzyzewski's wife liked them.
There was only one problem, really: Duke was too damn good. Whether it was the masterful inside game of Okafor, the brute force of Justise Winslow, the poise and skill of Jones or the daring play of Allen, Duke beat Wisconsin for the second time this season for no other reason than because it was the better team.
Want a lighthearted story? Watch a Disney movie. This Duke squad was always more complicated than that. They were a bunch that constantly forced you to reconsider preconceived notions, the ones formed before any of these players were even born. You could root against the jerseys out of principle, but it was hard to root against the people wearing them.
Look deep enough, and Duke was a gripping story, too.
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Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports
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“Eight was all we had, and eight was all we needed,” said Justise Winslow after the game, with his brand new championship hat doing its best to fit on top of his outgrown hair. “We got the job done. All eight guys in practice working their ass off. During the game working their ass off. Eight was all we had so we had to find a way.”
If you're trying to pinpoint the second act of Duke's season, you can start on Jan. 30. That's when Coach K booted a player off the team at midseason for the first time in his career. Krzyzewski said junior guard Rasheed Sulaimon was "unable to consistently live up to the standards required to be a member of our program." Soon after, Duke's student newspaper revealed Sulaimon allegedly committed sexual assault to two different female students, and that Duke's administrators and coaches had known of the allegations for over a year.
Without Sulaimon, Duke had only eight scholarship players. It would be more reliant on its three star freshmen -- Okafor, Jones and Winslow -- than ever, and there was also now a bigger opportunity for the team’s fourth McDonald’s All-American, shooting guard Grayson Allen.
The next day, Duke traveled to face an undefeated Virginia team ranked No. 2 in the country. The Blue Devils had lost three of their last six games and found themselves trailing by five with under three minutes left. That’s when Matt Jones buried a three, Justise Winslow stole the ball and converted a layup on the other end, and Quinn Cook and Tyus Jones each nailed deep three-pointers to give Duke an improbable comeback win.
Duke faced another emotional test two weeks later when it hosted archrival North Carolina for the first time since the passing of Dean Smith. There was a prayer circle with both teams before the game. Carolina led by five with under 90 seconds left until Tyus Jones took over again, this time scoring nine straight Duke points to push the game to overtime, where the Blue Devils would eventually prevail.
It was a theme for Duke all season long: youth never felt like inexperience.
“It doesn’t matter if we’re freshmen or seniors,” Winslow said slouched in the locker room after winning the title. “Coach never treated us like freshmen, he treated us as players. That’s why we’ve been so successful this year.”
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Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports
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Duke didn’t come together like a typical team of super freshmen, if such a concept could even exist. Okafor, Jones and Winslow spent three years playing together and learning each other’s tendencies on the youth levels of USA Basketball. It wasn’t a coincidence they were selected for those teams. Krzyzewski used his biggest advantage to stay a step ahead.
The Chicago native Okafor and Minnesota native Jones were always a “packaged deal,” a coup that will now go down in history. Winslow signed shortly after. Allen was the first to commit, and did so almost as soon as Coach K offered him a scholarship. Duke was always said to be his dream school.
It all culminated on Monday. Allen had only scored in double figures four times entering the game, but he willed Duke back into the championship bout in the second half during a period when both Okafor and Winslow were out with foul trouble. He scored eight straight for Duke at one point and finished with 16 on the night.
If Allen’s performance will be remembered as a breakthrough, it’s only because it was part of a larger collective effort from his classmates. Duke’s freshmen scored 60 of the team’s 68 points in the biggest game of their lives. Jones led the way with 23 points on his way to being named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament. If Wisconsin’s experience was supposed to be an advantage, it didn’t benefit the Badgers on Monday.
“That’s why I came to Duke,” Winslow said in the winning locker room. “I thought the four guys we had coming in with the addition of guys coming back, we had a chance to do something special. It’s been a lot of hard work with a lot of ups and downs, but we did it. It looks like a pretty good decision to me.”
There’s no arguing with that now. This was Coach K’s finest masterpiece start to finish, a long con that began on the U15 levels of USA Basketball and ended Monday night in Indy. This team had one shot before three starters turned pro, and it made the most of it. It might have not always seemed apparent during the season, but the stars were aligned for Duke. The championship game is the only proof you need.
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