OMAHA, Neb.—With just six ticks left on the clock in Friday's Sweet 16 contest, Gary Trent Jr. stepped to the charity stripe for Duke.
For most, that might have been the ultimate pressure moment—a chance to ice an NCAA tournament win and move their team within one victory of college basketball's grandest stage. And Trent could have handled it like a freshman, letting the pressure get to him and short-arming the shots.
Except he didn't.
Thanks to Trent and yet another big-time performance from a young crop of Blue Devils, No. 2 seed Duke will get its shot at a trip to San Antonio when it takes on top-seeded Kansas in the Midwest regional final at 5:05 p.m. Sunday at the CenturyLink Center. Two nights after Blue Devil head coach Mike Krzyzewski reached 1,100 career victories, the 71-year-old can make even more coaching history, as a win would push him past Hall of Famer John Wooden with 13 Final Four appearances.
In usual fashion Saturday, Coach K was not at all focused on his own accolades. Right now, it's all about getting this Duke team to its first Final Four.
"I'm doing it with this group...I'm not a rearview mirror guy," Krzyzewski said. "When you start thinking about those, you can rationalize, and rationalization is one of the things that stops people from continued excellence, because they live in the past.... Then they stop adapting and they stop getting hungry and they stop having that opportunity to do what we're going—what we might—be able to do."
These Blue Devils are different from the ones that have made many of those deep March runs for Krzyzewski. Unlike the teams that started just one or no freshman, Duke will probably once again throw out four first-year starters against the Jayhawks—a team that will be playing in its third straight Elite Eight with a hunger to finally advance to the sport's final weekend.
The Blue Devils (29-7) may not have the postseason experience of their opponent come Sunday, but even with so much at stake, Duke doesn't appear to be bothered by the biggest stage it will have played on all season.
“We try to act like we’ve been here before. We haven’t. We all know that four of us freshmen have not been here before. But we’re just going to go out there and play our game," Wendell Carter Jr. said. "As freshmen, I think a lot of people are bought into themselves and not bought into the system that’s at the school they’re attending. As a team, we’re all bought in, and that’s what makes us different.
"We’re not going to go out here nervous or anything like that. We’re just going to go out there and play our game, keep a level head, stay poised on the offensive and defensive end and just have fun."
Carter and Marvin Bagley III will likely have the biggest say in Sunday's outcome. Unlike the Blue Devils, Kansas (30-7) plays through its guards, leaning solely on sophomore big man Udoka Azubuike to control the paint.
But as much as Duke's big men have dominated throughout the season and into March, classmates Trent and Trevon Duval have had their moments on the outside—each has hit clutch shots and been just a piece of a larger puzzle that seems to be coming together at the right time.
For Grayson Allen—who was part of his own dominant freshman class when the Blue Devils last made the Final Four in 2015—watching this young corps evolve almost brings things full circle. And the senior captain can only smile knowing that his team is one step away from what he described as "the most fun he's ever had playing basketball."
"They really go after it. They haven't been anxious or over-nervous," Allen said of his rookie teammates. "They've been very confident. They don't feel pressure on them, which is great and how it should be. They play very free.... These young guys have just loved the big moments, and this whole tournament is one big moment, and they love it."
There's little question the Jayhawks will pose the biggest challenge Duke has faced in this tournament. Kansas is arguably the most polished offensive unit the Blue Devils have played this season, and the Jayhawks hit on better than 40 percent of their shots from beyond the arc.
Kansas is led by National Player of the Year candidate Devonte' Graham, a Raleigh native who Jayhawk head coach Bill Self said will "go down as one of the all-time greats" and is "the best intangible guy" he's ever coached at Kansas.
Throw in a trio of complementary sharpshooters in Svi Mykhailiuk, Lagerald Vick and Malik Newman and you're looking at a team that could send Duke packing.
"We understand that nothing is going to be easy for us," Bagley said. "Nothing is going to come easy if we want to get to the Final Four. So we have to really lock in like we've been doing the past couple of games and just focus on our game plan and things we need to do."
With a young group that features just Allen as a senior, no other Blue Devils have ever reached this point, let alone college basketball's final weekend. But Duke's captain knows he wants to extend his career just a bit more.
"If you watch college basketball growing up, you picture yourself in that moment. You picture yourself playing in the Final Four on a huge stage, and when you get there, it’s almost surreal," Allen said. "It’s something I want this group to experience and obviously, something I want to experience again. That’s why we really need to fight tomorrow and take care of business against a great team."
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Twitter: @mpgladstone13
A junior from just outside Philadelphia, Mitchell is probably reminding you how the Eagles won the Super Bowl this year and that the Phillies are definitely on the rebound. Outside of The Chronicle, he majors in Economics, minors in Statistics and is working toward the PJMS certificate, in addition to playing trombone in the Duke University Marching Band. And if you're getting him a sandwich with beef and cheese outside the state of Pennsylvania, you best not call it a "Philly cheesesteak."