However it may occur, whether in New Orleans or San Francisco or, God forbid, Greenville, the end of the road draws near for Duke and Mike Krzyzewski, who, as you may have heard, is retiring. Krzyzewski has done what he can to dampen the narrative around him in an attempt to keep the focus on his very young team, which earned a No. 2 seed in the tournament having gone 28–6, a quality campaign in all respects. But as the spotlight on the Blue Devils magnifies this week, the tenor of the national conversation has been that Duke doesn’t quite have the feel of a contender, and that it isn’t quite playing its best basketball at the best time of year.
After spending last week watching Duke up close at the ACC tournament, this writer can echo that sentiment: The Blue Devils slogged their way through three tournament games, withstanding a barrage of threes from Syracuse in the quarterfinals, playing a more composed but still strenuous game against Miami in the semis and ultimately falling to scalding, confident Virginia Tech by 15 points in a game that got away from them down the stretch. Duke tips off Friday at 7:10 p.m. ET against Cal State-Fullerton, and enters the tourney with some stuff to figure out, to say the least.
John Minchillo/AP
