Mike Krzyzewski is talking to the Cameron Crazies again.
No, there was no shouting tirade at halftime, and the Duke head coach swears it isn't for 'selfish' reasons. He doesn't even think the fans were bad. Krzyzewski just wanted more from the Cameron Indoor Stadium crowd of 9,314 Monday night.
Fresh off of as gritty and impressive of a 48-hour stretch of any team in all of college basketball, Krzyzewski was just looking for his team's energy to be matched.
"We've been spoiled to watch Zion [Williamson], [Jayson] Tatum, [Marvin] Bagley III and all these guys play, and that's not what we have." Krzyzewski said. "We have an old fashioned team that needs for everybody to be hungry. [Duke fans] are accustomed to outstanding, and this team is trying to be."
For as iconic as a rivalry buzzer-beater can be, the seventh-ranked Blue Devils' 70-65 win against No. 8 Florida State was an even bigger step for Krzyzewski's young squad, and it showed as the long-time head coach bubbled with pride postgame. After the emotional overtime victory against North Carolina and just one day of rest, Duke used pure grit and toughness against an extremely physical top-10 opponent.
"A real player doesn’t run plays, a real player makes plays," Krzyzewski emphasized. "You run plays for people who aren’t players. That doesn’t mean you don’t run them for players too, but players make plays, and our guys are making plays, they’re making really good plays. Damn, am I happy about these guys.”
Tied with Duke in the ACC standings coming into the night, the Seminoles were as big a test as any from a talent and physical standpoint. However, the Blue Devils came out with a rocking energy needed in a heavyweight ACC fight.
"It's a huge thing for us," freshman forward Wendell Moore Jr. said. "Coaches preaching that this whole 48 hours is kind of like a tournament thing for us, like playing a game Friday and come back and play Sunday. We knew we won the game Saturday, we knew we had a huge game coming up, so everything was next play."
As for Moore, Saturday's heroics didn't suddenly turn the Charlotte native into another Duke star. There were still bumps in the road, like committing four of the Blue Devils 20 turnovers, but Moore once again symbolized Duke's winning effort Monday, producing countless gritty plays.
"Wendell [Moore], who, I don’t think any of you in the audience have had a winning shot in front of 21,000 people against your arch rival, but if you’re 18, how you handle that can be pretty tough. He had a game like a kid that's 18 until the second half, and then that play he made in the full court just was spectacular," Krzyzewski said.
Slow starts have been an issue for the Blue Devils since the turn of the new decade, and an early hole would have doomed Duke from the start if it weren't for an unmatched defensive intensity. Florida State missed its first eight shots from the floor, most of them contested jumpers, as the Blue Devils played with a burning fire not seen in the games against the Tar Heels and Boston College.
"It's definitely a big thing when we can get out quick like that because there's been games in the past where we haven't had a hot start," junior guard Alex O'Connell said. "You put a pretty big emphasis on that and tonight just making sure that we come out hard and don't start slow. I think that helped us down the stretch in being able to finish the game out like we did."
As much as tired legs were a factor late in the second half, the mental fatigue from the thriller in Chapel Hill could have easily made the Blue Devils succumb to the veteran Seminoles. Krzyzewski mentioned that with the short break, the team could only see a shortened scouting report on Florida State's 11-man rotation, "changing the delivery" of the scouting report to categorize each Seminole as a shooter, driver or big.
"That was obviously a historical game for us and it was a lot of fun," O'Connell said on the North Carolina win. "We enjoyed that win as much as any team could, but we made sure we moved on. The coaches were really big on making sure we moved on from that game and I think we did a good job of that."
Toward the final stretch of the game, Duke looked like it could collapse, trailing 52-50, but grit up and down the roster came through again for the Blue Devils. A five-point spark from O'Connell and clutch, tough play from Matthew Hurt allowed Duke to capture its 21st win in bruising fashion.
"They've got so much depth and they play so many guys," junior guard Jordan Goldwire said. "They're a very good team, athletic, defend well and well-coached. It was a fight."
Krzyzewski couldn't help but appear like a proud father after the win—or grandfather, I suppose—but he's simply trying to make the college basketball world love his team as much as he does.
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