A Season of Change

Somewhere in the two-minute walk from the season's last press conference to the locker room in the lonesome bowels of the Ford Center in Oklahoma City, Abby Waner finally felt the weight of another lost season. Three NCAA Tournaments come and gone, producing nothing more than a prolonged anguish, like failing to remember the most desirable and vivid dream, flickering between fantasy and reality for three long years-for an entire lifetime, really.

She slumped into a collapsible chair in front of her locker, and the tears fell like the shots hadn't. Waner's roommate, sophomore Brittany Mitch, tried to console her, but the only refuge Waner found inviting was the inside of the gray Duke Basketball T-shirt she threw on to quell the shivers that had plagued her body since the final horn of the Sweet 16 sounded, signaling Duke's latest postseason demise.

Waner had managed to remain composed during the final press conference. The normally verbose de facto team spokeswoman offered terse answers and lamented the frustration of losing her marksmanship throughout, well, the entire season. She retreated from the cool media room to the cold locker area and, again, released the emotions that had flooded her on the court. After the Aggies began to celebrate their Sweet 16 win, Waner untucked her black uniform and found senior Wanisha Smith in front of Duke's bench, where Smith, too, had held her head in her hands. The pair of stalwart guards hugged and held the embrace as the two teams shook hands. Then, for the last time, they let go of each other and of the season that was.

Waner's eyes had moistened before, of course. She bawled after Duke blew a 13-point lead in the second half to lose the 2006 National Championship; she wept when Lindsey Harding missed two free throws as Duke lost to Rutgers in the 2007 Sweet 16; the junior sniffled when Tennessee handed Duke a 67-64 loss in Cameron Indoor Stadium Jan. 28 after her buzzer-beating halfcourt heave hit the side of the rim. She didn't cry after the tight home loss to Maryland, or the embarrassing shellacking at North Carolina, or the more respectable defeat to the Tar Heels in the ACC Tournament. Those had become commonplace this year.

But a season's last loss is always unique. Since the program's inception 32 years ago, Duke has ended every season with a loss; but, somehow, the surprise of defeat never stales and, in some cases, becomes fresher with the fusion of the past and painful present. "Regardless of the way you lose, when you lose, you don't expect to lose," Waner said between tears, her low and suddenly tiny voice puncturing the somber locker room. "It's just tough losing when you know you can go so much further."

This program, however, has never made that next step. The Blue Devils have hung every sort of banner in Cameron since Gail Goestenkors took over the program in 1992: there are the ACC regular-season titles, the ACC Tournament crowns, the No. 1 final rankings, the retired jerseys. But the most important sign, the ultimate display of the program's coronation, is still conspicuously absent from the rafters. And until a real title banner hangs, that burden will become more relevant with every missed opportunity. That missing piece will become more magnified with every loss to cap the season. Those tears will become tougher to withhold, more tender every year.

That might have changed this season with a new coach, a new style and, for the first time, a new outlook-a built-in excuse to forget the past, purge the program of the devastation and simply move on. When Joanne P. McCallie came to Durham from Michigan State preaching change, that magically transcendent word, everything seemed right. Playing without debilitating emotion would form a team that won routinely and expectedly. Adjusting to a Big Ten system while playing in the ACC would shape a team naturally designed to peak in the postseason. Erasing the past would allow a team defined by its losses to write a new plot for itself. Everything would change under a new regime, promising these wholesale shifts in order to ultimately nullify the program's torturous past with a more successful future.

But when that doesn't happen-when the new season mirrors the old ones in their common end results, without the prodigious accomplishments along the way-well, that's when the eyes swell up. That's when losing a fantasy becomes more of a reality than anyone could ever dream.

But McCallie was not here to finish what Coach G couldn't. She knew it was not that simple. She was here to build her own program, which had been as strategically distant from Goestenkors' as possible. And she knew that this team-losing two All-American seniors at the two most important positions in her system-did not have the horses to view another title run as their inheritance. "She wasn't coming in here to coach under Coach G's shadow," Waner said after the season. "Things needed to change because we hadn't won that national championship."

So in preseason workouts McCallie made it clear the team would be starting from scratch. Each player was receiving a clean slate. For better or worse, McCallie told the team she was not going to judge players on their past performance. She wasn't going to watch tape of last season. What they did from that point on was all mattered.

The start of the season made it clear she wasn't just paying lip service to the carte blanche she promised. The starting lineup changed nearly every game early on, and players who had been seemingly glued to the end of G's bench now were running the show. The team that took the floor for the home opener was barely recognizable to most fans. The two most familiar players, Waner and Smith, sat on the bench with injuries. Carrem Gay was the only player on the court that had started a game last season. The optimism that peaked with the Blue-White scrimmage nearly a month before-when the biggest news was the 1,000 new season-ticket holders and the fact that Mike Krzyzewski showed up to a women's game for the first time anyone could remember-was quickly subdued, even reversed.

Turnovers were aplenty against a clearly overmatched UNC-Greensboro team; for every easy lob to Chante Black or Krystal Thomas, there was a sloppy pass or fumbled dribble. Fans audibly groaned that this kind of play would soon spell trouble.

It did. After Duke knocked off its first ranked opponent with a comfortable victory over a middle-of-the-road Purdue in a Thanksgiving tournament, a dominant Connecticut squad showed the Blue Devils how far they were from the top, winning 74-48. "We hadn't lost like that for a long time," said Waner, who scored zero points in the game, her first back from an ankle injury. "You get jacked to play those big teams, and to come out and lose by 30 isn't exactly easy."

Soon after, it only became tougher. Back-to-back road losses to Vanderbilt and Penn State gave the Blue Devils their longest losing streak in more than a decade. The Penn State loss was the low point. The Blue Devils seemed to sleep walk to a 15-point first-half deficit, only to rally back to tie the game at 84 with nine seconds remaining. The Lady Lions-who finished the season 10th in the Big Ten-then scored an uncontested layup to win on what McCallie called horrific defense. These losses weren't the same as the Connecticut rout. These were teams Duke was supposed to beat and, in past years, had rendered pedestrian.

The team rode back to Duke from the airport in silence. When one of the coaches determined that a team manager was making too much noise on the bus, she was quickly quieted and the overpowering silence resumed. McCallie strode off the bus without saying a word to the team, leaving her assistants to tell the team they had the next day off. A revenge matchup with Rutgers loomed four days later.

All season, McCallie held a weekly call-in show on the local sports radio station, hosting the show live once a month at Satisfaction Restaurant in Brightleaf Square. That Wednesday, with the risk of the longest losing streak since 1994 one day away, the joint was packed, some to support a new coach who had quickly become embattled, some to see how she would react to her first round of criticism in the basketball-crazy Triangle.

It wasn't long until the latter group received an answer. A listener wrote in an e-mail not so much asking as accusing McCallie of reaming out her team on the bus after the Connecticut game, telling them to ride in silence and then not joining them on the bus. McCallie was ready-and defensive. "It seems like we've got a leak in our program, and we need to find it," McCallie said. "What I say to my players is private."

She defended the demand for silence as wanting her team to think about the beating they just took. "Weight room, anyone?" she had asked her team after the game. They had just been physically manhandled by the second-ranked team in the country, and she made sure to drive home her point that the team needed to get stronger. As for not riding on the bus, McCallie said her team had not saved her a seat. "Can you believe that, the coach doesn't have a seat on the bus?" McCallie asked with the kind of laugh that showed she didn't find it funny at all. The supporters munching on their subs and burgers sat in uncomfortable silence, while Coach P went on to express the need to get rid of the clutter surrounding the program. McCallie would later define clutter as anything that distracted her team from its mission, but it was clear here that she was referring to the hangers-on that took up so many seats on the team bus-as well as the people feeding boosters her postgame speeches.

A program has concentric circles of people to win over, and at the beginning McCallie only needed to focus on the first circle: the players. Boosters, support staff, friends, even fans-they were the outer circles, and she knew they would take more time and more wins to convince. For now, there were already rumors of dissension among the team, and she needed to circle the wagons.

To the players, "clutter" was the constant comparisons between Goestenkors and McCallie-the ones others were making and the ones they had to make for the media. Having to discuss what G did differently eventually led them to question what G would do now. "A lot of people might have taken that in as a 'what if?' in the beginning, and that probably did alter, or at least make [the team] hesitant in believing in her system," Black said. "It didn't bother me. But it could have been a problem for some people."

The showdown with Rutgers carried enough meaning without the internal questions. Last December, the Blue Devils embarrassed the Scarlet Knights, beating them by 40 in New Jersey. But Rutgers had the last laugh when it counted, and the Blue Devils were thirsty for vengeance.

The first half was ugly on both sides, with a middle-school-like halftime score of 19-17. The Blue Devils looked on the verge of collapse, and yet, they were firmly in the game. Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer was so disgusted with her team that she pulled all her starters early in the second half. But as the Cameron crowd rose to its feet and roared, Duke embarked on its second-half run reminiscent of the way it put away teams last year.

When sophomore Keturah Jackson was fouled with a second left and the Blue Devils ahead by four, all the pressure of revenge and losing streaks melted away. But as her team collapsed into a five-woman hug at midcourt and the Cameron crowd stood and cheered, McCallie did not break a smile. Assistant Al Brown patted her on the back and whispered, "Good game, Coach," but McCallie's stern gaze never left her celebrating, relieved players. She was worried. Celebration at a time like this was fine, but relief wasn't. She wanted chest-bumps and players shouting "Hell yeah!," not deep exhales and "Thank God." Duke players should have expected to win a game like this, but it was clear her team saw this as an upset.

Emotion was a top priority for McCallie. She preferred a certain amount of stoicism, but Goestenkors, for whatever reason, had recruited players who largely wore their feelings on their sleeves. McCallie wanted a team that was strong-physically and emotionally-and simply went out and executed flawlessly until the opposition submitted. But if the players couldn't complain to officials or pout after missed shots, they needed McCallie to do it for them. They needed her to work the refs and maybe even earn a few well-timed technical fouls, just to show that the players were being sufficiently represented.

It was more than just a basketball issue for McCallie. She thought women in modern society far too often placed emotion above reason, something that held them back in the real world. As a successful woman, she believed she could-and should-instill in her team the habits of rising above the feminine stereotype. Especially at Duke. These were accomplished, driven women, as she liked to point out, and yet on the court, they were often thrown off their game by a single call or mistake.

So before the season, McCallie started hammering home the need to avoid showing any negativity. Negative energy was contagious, she thought, and she showed the team a series of clips from the previous years where players were too outwardly upset. The majority of them showed Waner and Black reacting to calls. Smith, as expressive a player as any in the country, said learning to control their emotions was one of the biggest adjustments the veterans had to make between coaches, but McCallie was relentless in emphasizing it.

Yet here they were, basking in their first big win of the season. One would have thought the Blue Devils had never been there before.

Nothing seemed to be plaguing Duke as the calendar switched from 2007 to 2008. Rather, it seemed very little could derail the Blue Devils in what was perhaps their most wonderful time of the year. Including the momentous win over Rutgers, Duke reeled off eight in a row, including a buzzer-beating win over Pittsburgh at Madison Square Garden and punctuated by a 70-38 win over a Florida State team that would eventually advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

And so the Blue Devils entered the first of their big four of ACC games at Maryland, with timing that even the reticent McCallie deemed fortuitous. But their momentum did not survive the night. The Terrapins were a damn good team, but in the last six minutes against McCallie's team, they looked like a lock to raise their second national championship banner in three years, partly because they played well, partly because Duke looked that lost. The Blue Devils made a valiant comeback in the second half, turning a 13-point Maryland lead into a tie at 68 with 5:59 left. Smith evened the game with a free throw before missing the lead-changing attempt from the charity stripe. Maryland then closed the game on a 20-5 run and, well, that was that.

The team soon suffered a different kind of loss. In the middle of ACC play, the close-knit bond the players had made during the coachless period and the family that McCallie had promised faced a heavy setback. Emily Waner, one of the team's two seniors, announced she was leaving the team. Waner's playing time had dropped throughout the season, and it was clear she did not have the same rapport with McCallie that she had with Goestenkors, for whom she also had played sparingly. Indeed, after her departure, rumors swirled everywhere from Cameron's wooden bleachers to cyberspace's message boards speculating the behind-the-scenes conflict between both McCallie and Waner and the coach and her new squad. Maybe it was the switching of styles, maybe it was a difference in coaching personality, maybe it was the mounting pile of frustrating losses. Whichever way, something was wrong. Emily's leave of absence prompted several meetings within the team, but when Abby-Emily's sister and best friend-continued playing through the situation, the others determined they could try to put it in the past, as well.

While the circumstances seemed to smooth over-or at least never reached the point of media saturation-it belied the basic tenet of this team: that the fresh start McCallie provided was the solution everyone had hoped for.

In the stretch from the team releasing Emily's leave of absence to McCallie's confirmation that the senior would not wear the uniform again and only sit on the bench in street clothes-"That's why I'm there," Emily told The (Raleigh) News & Observer, "it's for the girls, and only the girls"-the hushed whispers crescendoed: Where would this team be with Goestenkors still in command? Make no mistake-Goestenkors was a yeller. But the players signed up for her yelling; even the three freshmen who honored their commitments to Duke signed on to play for Goestenkors. They all had different reasons for coming-some wanted the academic rigor of Duke, some wanted to win the program's first national championship rather than ride the coattails of former pioneers, some wanted to stay near home-but, at the forefront of it all, they came for Goestenkors. And now she was gone-even as word came back that she still had mixed feelings about her decision-leading a middling Texas squad with a truly bare cupboard of talent to upset wins in the Big 12 as Duke couldn't put together a string of good wins.

That perception slowly morphed into reality when Duke lost three midseason games to North Carolina, Tennessee and Maryland-three elite teams that the Blue Devils had swept the season before. The loss to Pat Summitt's Lady Volunteers was the hardest to swallow, as Duke took the bullet despite playing some of the best basketball it would play all season. Candace Parker missed her first six shots and only scored 17 points, but her last two sunk the Blue Devils. They doubled the All-World forward every possession but the last, when Parker caught the ball with her back to the basket, turned, and laid it in over Black. Duke's center desperately awaited the help that had come all night, but to no avail. Waner had a chance to tie as she hoisted a half-court buzzer beater that hit the side of the rim and bounced away. She fell back into press row, slumped her shoulder and brought her jersey up to her mouth to hide the outpouring of emotion. So close. Again.

It's not always fair to judge a season-especially a Duke Women's Basketball season-by its performance against only the teams it can realistically lose to. After all, the Blue Devils took care of business against all the teams they were supposed to beat. Against ACC teams not named North Carolina and Maryland, Duke won all 10 games by an average of more than 20 points. McCallie's team finished in a firm third place and beat fourth-place finisher Virginia at home on Senior Day to solidify its status in the league's top three. The final conference record was 10-4, respectable by most standards. But Duke standards imply more than third-place conference finishes.

Women's college basketball, moreover, features little parity: there is a small group of elite teams, and there is everyone else. After years of being firmly entrenched in the first group, the Blue Devils were on the verge of toeing the line between the two. When you lose to almost every team in that upper echelon, cynics will question your place in a members-only club. Sure, Duke could have beaten any of those teams. But for whatever reason-it seemed to change every game-the Blue Devils didn't. They never dropped below No. 14 in the country, but that was more a reflection on external realities than internal accomplishments. The losses weren't accepted or expected, and their abundance did nothing to alleviate their sting-nor did the way they were held accountable.

McCallie embraced the theory of "we win, I lose," and even called it such. The point, she said, was not to place blame after a loss, but rather to have her players recognize the areas in which they contributed to the team's loss. McCallie thought that the truth was all too often sugarcoated when it shouldn't always go down smoothly. Individual responsibility was the first step in buying into her system. The day after each game, the players were given a questionnaire that required them to evaluate their individual play. By the first practice following their 17-point home loss to North Carolina, the players were pretty sick of writing the same things after each defeat. Every game against top-flight competition put the Blue Devils' weaknesses on display-rebounding, turnovers and an inability to control the tempo.

McCallie's coaching philosophy stated that teams who relied heavily on a fast pace throughout the year set themselves up for failure in March, when referees swallowed their whistles and possessions became more valued as the weight of a season hung on every one. Anyone could get up and down the court in the regular season, but teams that could control the ball and establish an inside game had a better chance of advancing in the Tournament-the only time that having a better chance actually mattered, at least by Duke's expectations. Duke players knew this theory had validity from last season's heartbreak. The Blue Devils averaged 77 points per game in their undefeated regular season, but couldn't pull out a tough victory when Rutgers slowed them down and forced them into a physical slugfest. When the horn sounded on their title dreams last season, the Blue Devils had scored only 52 points, their lowest output of the long season.

The theory was laudable on paper. The catch: this Duke team did not fit the mold to slow it down and pound it out. Some players benefited from the change-most notably Jackson, a slasher and shutdown defender who had became Duke's first guard off the bench after redshirting her freshman year and barely playing last season. But while Black, Gay and Joy Cheek were a formidable frontcourt, the true heart and grit of the team rested in the backcourt.

And playing against teams that wanted to run up and down the floor and were more adept at enforcing their style-e.g., Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee and Connecticut-didn't really help. Despite extensive preseason work in the weight room, McCallie admitted the Blue Devils were way behind other elite teams in terms of strength. Without an established point guard-freshman Jasmine Thomas, a natural two-guard, took time to adapt to the position-Duke ranked 174th in Division I with more than 18 turnovers per game, which ruined any chance of slowing down more athletic teams like the Tar Heels. Never was that more apparent than in the regular-season finale in Chapel Hill, where 18 first-half turnovers and abysmal execution led to a 31-point beatdown, Duke's worst loss in 15 years. The Blue Devils were clearly not prepared for the Tar Heels fast-paced attack and panicked when they fell behind early. The starters spent most of the last 10 minutes on the bench as North Carolina continued to rub in the embarrassment.

While the Tar Heels celebrated an unblemished ACC mark at midcourt of their home floor on senior night, the Blue Devils retreated back to the visitors' locker room, stunned by their worst performance of the year. One season after Duke had realized perfection in the same manner as its rival, there they were, slowly trudging past the riotous but ultimately exclusive party.

That's how Duke entered the first of two postseason tournaments: coming off of its worst loss in 15 years, one bad loss away from potentially earning an unexpectedly meager No. 4 seed and, perhaps most critically, in desperate need of a marquee win. The No. 3 Blue Devils were positioned to have two shots at redemption, in the semifinals against Maryland and then, should they exact vengeance on the Terrapins, in the finals against North Carolina, the team that had just shellacked them. But their practices in the week leading up to the Tournament gave them some measure of hope.

"We always clicked with [McCallie] since the beginning, but when everything really clicked or felt like it from everyone, was probably at the start of the ACC Tournament," Black would recall. "Which is late in the season, but you can't be mad when it comes at the one time when it's win or go home."

But before the powerhouses came pesky Florida State, intent on adding a win over an elite opponent to its own NCAA Tournament resume. And that sheer desire almost powered the Seminoles over the still-reeling Blue Devils. Almost. Because when it mattered most, the Blue Devils did something they hadn't done all year. They played like the favorites. They played with the cocky swagger that used to be implicit with Duke Basketball. For once, they...clicked.

Trailing by six at the 12-minute official stoppage of the second half, the Duke players retreated to the bench in Greensboro Coliseum, the site where they suffered both of their losses last season. Jackson sat down with her teammates and the redshirt sophomore-the player who hardly even removed her warm-ups last year-took over for the tri-captains. "It's now or never," she said. "We can't wait until the last two minutes to beat them." So they didn't. Sporting zero points, Waner dropped 14 in the game's last quarter, including two verifiable bombs. She held her follow-through after both swooshes, a bravado celebration-of-sorts she reserves for only her biggest makes. "We've come together this season, but that was powerful in those last 11 minutes," she said after the game.

The Blue Devils blew the game open, closing on a 30-9 run, and it was their 3-point shooting, one of their most obvious Achilles' heels, that carried them there. The team shot just 27 percent for the season, but in that crucial half, they hit four of five, with Waner dropping two and Smith and Thomas each adding one. Waner's now-rare success from beyond the arc was especially cathartic, as she had seen her percentage plummet compared to her first two years. All McCallie could do was smile in marvel. "I was happy. Just happy," she said. "When you see your players do what they love..." she said, shifting topics before her feelings got the best of her.

The emotion of the quarterfinal's last 11 minutes carried over into a Saturday rematch with Maryland, which beat Duke twice in the regualr season. But the Terrapins had never truly dominated in either game-in fact, the Blue Devils had a bevy of opportunities to win both. So it was with that type of mentality that they walked onto the floor, knowing they could win and feeling, deep down, that they really had to.

Back and forth for the entire first period, Duke led by two at halftime. Not only that, but the Blue Devils looked like they were finally capable of winning this kind of game. Unlike the embarrassment at Carolina only six days prior, they were visibly confident, and McCallie rewarded that oozing exuberance by allowing the players, especially the point guards, to call their own sets. The trust paid dividends, as Duke built a double-digit lead less than 10 minutes into the period and every time the Terrapins cut the deficit, another Blue Devil stabbed the dagger. Cheek hit a three to push the lead to seven with 4:28 left. Smith hit two free throws to bump it back to six with 2:19 left. Waner iced the Terrapins with a layup plus the foul with 1:35 to go. For the first time in five tries this year, Duke celebrated at midcourt after a matchup with Maryland or North Carolina.

It was the type of win Duke craved for its seeding and for its mental psyche. How could the Blue Devils waltz into the Big Dance lacking a marquee win in the new calendar year? They couldn't expect to knock off Connecticut or Tennessee or North Carolina when they had lost every game against a top-5 team since December. Sure, they could win. But basketball doesn't work like that. Just as shooters need to see their shot fall easily through a net, teams need to have proof they can beat the best before they can believe it. Now they did.

And when they lost the in the final to North Carolina the next day by playing the Tar Heels the most competitively they had all year, the Blue Devils went home without a trophy. But they drove back to Durham knowing that they did what they needed to do.

After their most promising week of the year, the Blue Devils got two breaks they desperately needed-a restful one and a fortunate one. With two weeks between the ACC Championship and the first round of the Big Dance, the players took a reprieve from practice. The Waners and Brittany Mitch went to Disney World; others lounged around at home and enjoyed spring vacation. The second break came on Selection Monday, when the Blue Devils saw the news that their first two games would come as a No. 3 seed in College Park, about as close to home as they could have hoped, and that the No. 2 seed standing in their way of the Elite Eight was the one judged to be the most beatable of the bunch.

Duke then gave their fans more reason to believe, taking care of business against an overmatched Murray State and then imposing their style on a pesky Arizona St. squad. The Blue Devils seemed to finally have become McCallie's team. They fed the ball inside again and again and again. It didn't matter that they couldn't hit a three, because Chante Black was dominating inside, and everyone was crashing the boards and getting to the free throw line. Duke still wasn't a dominant team, but they had reached the Sweet 16 again, and perhaps the players had learned to mask their weaknesses and play to their strengths enough to tough out just a couple more victories.

It was late March, the time McCallie says she lives for, and finally it seemed the Blue Devils had the chance to garner two signature victories and celebrate all the way to the Final Four. And for a five-minute stretch in the first half against Texas A&M, Duke looked more like the powerhouse of old. If the offense was lethargic, the defense was tenacious, and it resulted in easy buckets. The half-court man-to-man and matchup forced shot-clock violations and last-second, harmless heaves to beat the buzzer. The full-court zone press was swarming and triggered a quick 5-0 run with a steal and a layup from Jackson and another steal, layup and foul from Smith. The bench erupted in bellows and even McCallie, screaming instructions all season but so carefully averse to rejoice like her players, turned around to the bench and screamed in another way, accompanied with a fist pump and an invitation for her players to feel it as she did.

This was it, right? This had to be it. It was right there in front of anybody's eyes, evident in McCallie's passion and the players' glee. This is what peaking felt like.

This was McCallie's press fueling the Blue Devils' inherent talent, matchup and man fusing to get stops and turn those into points. Duke would nab another steal, Waner would swish a 28-footer, Texas A&M would call timeout, Smith and Waner would chest-bump at midcourt, and those suckers wearing maroon and white would be the unfortunate fatalities in Duke's zenith, months in the making. No one would care about eight regular-season losses after tonight.

Except that's not how it went. None of what should have happened-what happened so often last year and what still could have happened this year-actually happened.

Instead, the Aggies simply went back to playing as if they didn't know that Duke was finally ready to win. Maybe they would have rolled over and died last year, but not this year-not with this Duke team. Six minutes after Smith sunk her free throw, Texas A&M had stolen the lead from the Blue Devils. It proved to be their last advantage of the season. In the first 10 minutes of the second half, the Aggies broke it open with a 24-14 run, and when the Blue Devils laid down and retreated to the bench, McCallie was waiting. Do you think this is easy? she asked her forlorn players. Do you think they're just going to give this to you? But by that point, it was too late in the game, too close to the end of the season, for anyone to respond otherwise. The players were powerless to slice the gap, and jogged lethargically off the floor of the Ford Center with a 25-10 final record, serenaded by the Texas A&M fight song and left wondering when the hell the fat lady had sung their alma mater.

The end of a season represents the stripping of hope from an entire team and fan base. The punditocracy can claim that the underdog is destined for an early exit, but until another team actually comes out and wins-until that team removes every last drop of aspiration and adds it its own reserve-a team can yearn all it wants. Any loss is tough, but there is a reason why this one is the worst of all: there are no more wins to look forward to.

Of course, there is next year-another one of those magically transcendent phrases onto which losing fans latch. Players usually take a lengthy break after the last painful loss, but not this year. This team lost a year, a year of transition, even if they refused to excuse it that way. The first workouts of next season started just 10 days after this season ended. But that wasn't soon enough.

So in the same week that the players ended yet another season with tears, there they were in Wilson Gymnasium, seeking pickup games with any competition they could find. "After a season like that, there's not much reason to take time off," Waner said. And really, there was no need. There's no use in dreaming without the work, a touch of luck and, let's face it, that something more which drives a champion.

Only then can the dream become more real. Only then can a team rid itself of the bitter duo of defeat and disillusionment that overwhelmed the Blue Devils in the locker room in the depths of the Ford Center, when Waner cried, Mitch consoled, Gay froze like a statue, and the rest of the team simply stared in a dreamlike state.

This is how a season ended.