With 30 seconds to go in the Duke men's basketball team's matchup with Wake Forest Saturday, the Demon Deacons got possession of the ball with one last shot at victory. And with Wake down 61-60, everyone knew where that shot would come from.
Even when referee Rick Hartzell unexpectedly called time out with 20 seconds on the clock to wipe some sweat from the floor, it was only a mere interruption. The capacity crowd on hand at Cameron Indoor Stadium still held its collective breath in anticipation of the inevitable.
So when Wake senior guard Randolph Childress rose up over Duke's Kenny Blakeney and calmy drained a 10-foot jumper with six seconds left to give the Deacons a 62-61 victory, it only confirmed a foregone conclusion.
"I was pleased with the shot," Childress said of his final bucket, for which he drove around Blakeney to the right before pulling up just outside the free-throw line. "I got a running, 10-foot jumper. I didn't see anything wrong with it. I shot it, and it went in."
To those who know the history of these two teams, the outcome was no surprise. The Demon Deacons have beaten the Blue Devils the last five times the teams have met. Each of the last three times Wake has visited Cameron, it has come away with a victory. Earlier this season, the Deacs bested Duke in Winston-Salem by an even 10 points.
To those who know the history of Childress, his fade-away rainbow over Blakeney was almost an expectation. Childress has often been called upon to take last-second shots, although he missed ones earlier this year against Florida State and Georgia Tech. In last year's matchup in Cameron, Childress hit a three-pointer with 11 seconds remaining to lift the Deacons to a 69-68 victory. He is undisputedly the team's No. 1 option when the clock winds down.
"I don't have any problem taking every shot to win or lose a game," Childress said, shrugging off notions that misses on his final attempts at Tech and FSU this year had broken his confidence in himself. "I'll do it, and I'll live or die with it.
"There are very few guys that want that responsibility. A lot of guys will back down from that responsibility. I would never back down from that responsibility. I'm a senior on this team, and this is my team."
That Childress has fully embraced his role as the Demon Deacons' unquestionable leader has been clear all season. In 10 of their 20 games this year, he has led the team in scoring. He leads Wake in scoring (18.4 ppg), assists (95), steals (26), free throw percentage (79.3), minutes played (37.8 mpg), reporters talked to and autographs signed. Wake Forest head coach Dave Odom said earlier this year he often has to tell Childress to ease up in practice for fear he'll scare off his teammates with his intensity.
This is a man who lives life, as they say, "in the zone." The look on his face when he plays--and even when he talks about playing--is a stare that lies somewhere between that of a man in a coma and a rabid dog. Calling Childress intense is like saying Wilt Chamberlain was a ladies' man.
Childress showed this side of his personality, when after the game he grabbed the ball and threw it towards the rafters and into the stands where it came down on the back of a fan. Students and others in attendance took offense to this action and gave Childress a shower of boos and plastic drink cups.
Childress' performance on the floor against the Blue Devils on Saturday was no different. He lit up a combination of Duke guards--including Blakeney and freshman Trajan Langdon--for 22 points on 6-of-9 shooting. Four times he launched three-pointers, and four times they tickled the twine. He started slow, but came on to score 14 second-half points to keep Wake in the game.
"It's difficult to say what you want to do against Randolph," Langdon said. "He's a great player, and a very experienced player. There's not much you can do. He can go to the hole, he can shoot the outside shot. All you can do is hope to contain him."
The Blue Devils attempted to do just that with a strategy that included everything from a close man-to-man defense to a matchup zone to attempting to have Tonya Harding take out Childress' left knee at halftime. While Blakeney and Langdon provided pressure on the ball, the rest of the squad stood ready to step in and provide help, mainly by taking charges on Childress' drives.
Childress picked up his third foul less than seven minutes into the second half, but would not foul again for the remainder of the game. Meanwhile, the Blue Devils picked up countless blocking fouls, sending Childress to the line, where he converted 6-of-7 free throws, missing only the front end of a one-and-one with four minutes left in the game.
"I wanted to try to make him drive," a frustrated Blakeney said. "Our rotation tried to get charges on him and get him out of the game. We got four or five blocking calls against us. If we're trying to take charges and they're calling blocks, that's tough."
In the end, Childress' performance Saturday rendered meaningless an inspired Duke performance and left the Blue Devils with their 10th Atlantic Coast Conference loss of the season. Duke had done everything it needed to do to win, including shutting down Wake center Tim Duncan (four points) on defense and working the ball into Blue Devil big men Cherokee Parks and Erik Meek on the offensive end of the floor. Even the defensive scheme Duke's acting head coach Pete Gaudet devised to contain Childress seemed to be working, until that final shot.
For as Blue Devil fans know all too well, Randolph Childress can only be contained so long.
"I should have probably triple-teamed him," Gaudet said when asked about his defensive strategy on the game's final play. "With Randolph Childress, the law of averages just doesn't exist."
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