ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The looks on their faces said it all.
Duke's fearless leaders, seniors Steve Wojciechowski and Roshown McLeod, had just finished crying their eyes out because their date with destiny was dancing with the boys from Kentucky.
The stage was set for greatness Sunday evening at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. The top-seeded Blue Devils were facing the nation's hottest team with a trip to the Final Four on the line. Duke's seniors had come full circle from a freshman year of utter horror, risen from the ashes and had positioned themselves for a return to an event once deemed the Duke Invitational. It was perfect; the Blue Devils would earn a trip to San Antonio by night's end and erase all the demons.
But Lady Fate had other plans, and there was nothing Duke could do about it.
The Blue Devils were on top of the world with 9:37 remaining in the second half, holding a 17-point lead and riding a surge of momentum. When the clock read 0:00, that moment seemed worlds away as the Wildcat players danced around the floor and cut down the nets while the Duke players exited for the locker room, their season suddenly over.
But none of the Blue Devils were left with regrets, for the simple reason that they had not lost Sunday night, they had been beaten.
"I know our kids played their hearts out for 40 minutes," coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "Their kids played their hearts out. Congratulations to Kentucky, they have tough guys and a helluva coach in Tubby Smith."
Down the stretch, Kentucky drained seven of its eight three-point attempts, coralled almost every rebound and applied the most defensive pressure it could muster. Still, Duke did not collapse, did not go scoreless during the Wildcats surge and refused to back down. But it just didn't matter.
Kentucky's effort was something special, the type of inspired surge that carries a team to greatness-and there's no stopping greatness. What Duke laid on the floor was equally emotional and gut-wrenching. The result: a game that might go down in history as one of college basketball's classics.
"To me it was a great game, and I feel priveleged to have coached in it," Krzyzewski said.
The beauty of the game was apparent in the statistics: the Blue Devils committed just six turnonvers for the game, each team tallied 14 assists and both teams shot over 45 percent from the floor and over 40 percent on threes.
But in the end, Kentucky just had more to give. And the amazing part about the Wildcats' comeback was that it wasn't as if one or two players rose to the occasion and carried their team; every Kentucky player on the floor contributed to the win. Whether it was South Regional MVP Wayne Turner setting up his teammates' outside jumpers with penetration, feisty senior guard Jeff Sheppard converting a tough pull-up jumper, reserve forward Heshimu Evans tipping offensive rebounds back out to the perimeter or 6-foot-9 Scott Padgett draining the three that gave Kentucky an 84-81 lead, they all played their part.
"They're great kids," Krzyzewski said. "They have amazing camaraderie. They play you for 40 minutes and never lost their poise. Not one kid made any big plays, it was the whole team. They're a heck of a basketball team. They wouldn't have won if they weren't together like they were."
Duke played the same style of game as McLeod and Trajan Langdon led the way with 19 and 18 points, respectively, and everyone contributed when Duke was on a roll. Wojciechowski and Shane Battier both exceeded their season averages in scoring, and Mike Chappell made the most of his six minutes on the floor, hitting two big three-pointers.
Besides being a game of both balance and, as expected, depth, it was also a game of runs. Duke had a 17-0 run in the first half. The 'Cats responded with a 10-0 run of their own. The second half was full of smaller spurts as the Blue Devils built leads and then saw Kentucky quickly cut into them. Kentucky's last run came at just the right time. If the game had been a minute shorter, Duke may have held on. A minute longer and it likely would have surged ahead again.
"Kentucky is a team of runs," Wojciechowski said. "Unfortunately, their run came at the end."
Still, even with the acknowledgement by the Duke players that Kentucky had simply been the better team Sunday night, it was all still very tough to swallow. The Blue Devils are a team that lost just three times previously this season, all in games they knew they could have won had they just done a few things differently.
"It was a difficult ending to our season," Krzyzewski said. "Our kids put us in a position to win and we didn't. I feel badly for our guys because they've been amazing all year. I love my team. I love them even more after today."
And as coaches often love to say, the Blue Devils should have no regrets, having left it all on the floor in St. Petersburg.
"We played as hard as we could," Langdon said. "Nobody gave up, that's what coach said to us. He said it was a game where Kentucky won. There were no losers."
Still, destiny can only dance with one team.
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