Late Saturday night, long after Duke's 94-81 loss to North Carolina but while the celebration of Mike Krzyzewski's final home game continued, two Blue Devils whose jerseys hang in Cameron Indoor Stadium's rafters discussed the troubling outcome.
Shane Battier offered Shelden Williams some perspective by pointing to the NCAA championship ring on his finger. Battier's Blue Devils lost, 81-70, to Maryland on his senior night, Feb. 27, 2001, at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
The following week, he and his teammates beat Maryland, 84-82, in the ACC tournament semifinals in Atlanta before pounding North Carolina, 79-53, to win the ACC championship. Three weeks after that, Battier reminded Williams Saturday night, they celebrated a national championship win in Minneapolis.
"I didn't know they'd lost his senior night," Williams said Monday. "But, you know, there still might be a chance to erase this blemish by winning the national championship."
That's the job the current Blue Devils embarked upon Monday when they resumed practice in preparation for the ACC tournament at Brooklyn's Barclays Center in New York. Ranked No. 7 in the latest Associated Press poll, Duke (26-5) put together a stellar regular season to place first in the ACC standings.
A new banner will be raised to Cameron's rafters to commemorate that accomplishment. Now comes the time to earn another by winning the ACC tournament.
But to do so, the Blue Devils know they must play better in Brooklyn than they did on their home court Saturday night against UNC. Duke had won seven in a row and 12 of its past 13 prior to that loss. But losing to a bitter rival on a night where the eyes of the nation were focused on Duke to celebrate a milestone on Krzyzewski's road to retirement left a bitter taste for sure.
"We just need to get back to playing how we were," Duke's Paolo Banchero, who was named first-team all-ACC and the league's top freshman, said Monday. "Saturday we took a step back from where we were. I think we finished out the season strong in order to win the ACC regular season. I think we finished real strong and then we had the last game and took a step back. So we've just got to get back to how we were playing before, which is, being together, locking in on defense and communicating."
During the seven-game winning streak Duke put together in late February and early March, the Blue Devils played stellar defense. The 29.2% 3-point shooting percentage Duke allowed in league play this season is No. 1 in the ACC. Duke's league foes hit only 47.2% of their 2-point attempts, second in the ACC.
That's something that could help the Blue Devils win a championship this week. But they have to rediscover it.
"We just weren't being tough enough on the defensive end as a whole," said Duke center Mark Williams, who was named the ACC's defensive player of the year on Monday. "We've shown throughout the year the times where we've been tough on defense. When we're connected on those sort of levels, we're probably one of the best teams in the country defensively. We know that we can do that. Obviously Saturday we didn't do that."
To that point, after UNC hit 59.4% of their second-half shots to pull away, Krzyzewski said of the Blue Devils, "They should have talked a hell of a lot more on defense. They didn't talk at all on defense. And that's why the second half our defense was just horrible."
Why it happened in such a setting will be a source of debate. Krzyzewski said his team lacked hunger. Banchero said Monday Duke needs to play "desperate."
The March tournaments allow for desperation since one loss sends you home. Brooklyn and the quest for the ACC championship offers a taste. The following week, the NCAA tournament is the ultimate challenge.
"I think we just need to continue to communicate," Banchero said. "Play with hunger. I think we just need to share the ball and keep teams honest. When teams help on drives, kick. Just make simple plays as a team because we got a lot of talent across the board. So when talented players are doing just the simple plays and the little things right, we're hard to beat."
