Jack White really did not want to smile. After hitting his first 3-pointer in more than a month, the junior tried his best to grit his teeth and hustle back on defense.
White had been here before—22 times already this season, in fact. But after 28 consecutive misses, this one had to feel different.
And as the Crazies best put it, Jack was back.
"I just tried to keep telling myself that [one was going to go down]," White said. "I’ve been feeling good, I put in some work the last couple of days before the game. It was just a relief and I’m happy we were able to get the win."
There wasn't a whole lot that No. 3 Duke got out of Saturday's 87-57 rout. The game was decided within the first 10 minutes and Miami looked like a shell of the program it's been the last three seasons, winning 20-plus games and reaching the NCAA tournament.
White's early triple, however, was as critical as any shot all afternoon, sparking a 7-0 run and forcing Hurricane head coach Jim Larrañaga to call a timeout less than eight minutes in.
"He’s working hard," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We tell our guys all the time, ‘Trust your work. If you’ve been working, doing the things you’re supposed to do, then when you get to a game, trust what you’ve been working at.’
"He doesn’t want to be identified as somebody who hasn’t hit, and now he’s hit. He wants to be identified as a really good player, which he is. And today he was.”
The Blue Devils are going to need that "really good player" down the stretch because whether or not they want to admit it, they still have a 3-point problem. Outside of White, Duke shot a miserable 3-of-14 from distance against Miami and it remains among the bottom 30 teams in the nation in 3-point percentage.
The Australian might be the solution. White, after all, was shooting 40 percent beyond the arc prior to his 49-day dry spell.
In that time, though, he couldn't help but feel the irritation sink in.
"It was obviously pretty frustrating. I haven’t gone through a stretch like that in my life," White said. "Toward the latter end of it, I was more surprised than anything when I’d miss because it felt good and I was just like, 'Why?'"
Much of it was hard to explain.
White missed his final three triple tries against Florida State, and two nights later, the Blue Devils struggled as a whole on 3-pointers—combined, the team shot just 9-of-43 on treys versus Syracuse, as White missed all 10 of his attempts.
From there, things spiraled.
He missed five more before not taking a single shot from deep against Notre Dame Jan. 28. White then failed on his next three before going two games without a single 3-point try. The 6-foot-7 forward would miss six more in a row, ultimately leading to an entire game on the bench at Syracuse a week ago.
Tuesday night at Virginia Tech, White had three more cracks at ending his skid. By now, you know the result: miss, miss, miss.
"I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so it’s kind of hard not to put pressure on myself," White said. "But I understood I couldn’t really do that, that it would just make things harder for me.... I just tried to not let that affect other parts of my game that I do well: defense, rebounding and leading the guys."
Except it did—at least to an extent. Coach K went so far as to describe White as "a shell of himself" just 14 days prior.
White had already snapped a critical 3-point drought once this season. Against Texas Tech, he drained a corner triple in front of the Duke bench, ending a 0-for-14 start as the Blue Devils surged late.
The timing Saturday was different, but it was far more important.
White knew it, grinning as much as he tried not to. Duke knew it, rising from its bench as one. And the Cameron Indoor faithful knew it, turning up the volume to about as loud as it's been in there all season long.
"I didn’t really know how to react and I just felt like I was back to myself," White said. "I shouldn’t have to smile after hitting a 3—this is what I do. But in hindsight, it was pretty nuts."
Was the monkey off his back?
"I guess it was the joey out of my pouch," White laughed.
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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."