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Duke's win over Wisconsin was a sign of good things to come for Blue Devils
INDIANAPOLIS — Monday’s title game spotlight will be exponentially bigger, but it’s easy to forget how much hype surrounded the first time Wisconsin and Duke met this season.
That one was big — or at least as big as a non-conference college basketball game three days into the month of December can get.
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Headlines hyped the battle between Frank Kaminsky and Jahlil Okafor, the school’s two big men and national player of the year candidates.
Analysts pointed out the differences between Mike Krzyzewski’s collection of young McDonald's All-Americans looking to make their mark and Bo Ryan’s squad of homegrown talent that had made the Final Four the previous spring and was back looking for more.
Good tickets fetched Final Four prices and ESPN even constructed a special SportsCenter set at the Kohl Center for the premiere game of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
In the end, fourth-ranked Duke left Wisconsin with an 80-70 win over the second-ranked team in the country and gave Krzyzewski the confidence that he was coaching a special group.
“The thing I saw was they weren't nervous,” Krzyzewski said Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium, one day before the meeting of the two teams for the 2015 NCAA championship. “I mean, you can't teach that. They had it. Win or lose, I was going to come away from that game knowing that this would be a team that wouldn't be afraid of the bright lights and the big stage.”
Senior guard Quinn Cook added that it was “shocking” to see his younger teammates perform in their first true road game of the season and break the school’s five-year streak of dropping its first road game of the season. That it came against a Wisconsin team that Krzyzewski said on Sunday he considered the best team in the nation gave Duke fans the sign that maybe the learning curve with this squad wouldn’t be that steep.
Leading the way in Duke’s nerve-free play that night was freshman guard Tyus Jones, who performed well in front of a spirited crowd of family and friends who made the four-hour drive from Apple Valley, Minn., to watch him. His final line stole the show from both Kaminsky and Okafor: 22 points, six rebounds and four assists in 37 minutes of play.
Both Cook and Okafor also scored 13 points and Duke shot 65 percent from the floor (including hitting seven of 12 three-point attempts) on a night that hinted at a possible big rematch in the NCAA tournament.
Now that rematch is here and the two teams were repeatedly asked about the first game on Sunday afternoon. Each player and coach kept noting that much has changed in the 124 days that will separate the two contests.
For Wisconsin, the biggest change is that forward Sam Dekker is completely healthy. An ankle injury limited him to just five points over 24 minutes on that night. The return of Dekker’s health has given the Badgers another inside-outside threat that has made them unbeatable down the stretch over 11 straight victories.
(The leading scorer for Wisconsin that night? Senior guard Traevon Jackson with 25, a month before he’d be sidelined for the rest of the regular season with a broken foot, opening the door for sophomore Bronson Koenig to get both major minutes and added experience.)
“I don’t think we played very well at all that game,” said Kaminsky, who scored 17 points. “Defensively, we gave up a lot and offensively we looked lost at times. It was early in the season and we’ve grown a lot since then.”
For Duke, there was a notable departure in the time since as guard Rasheed Sulaimon (14 points against Wisconsin) was dismissed from the program in January. But there was also a notable addition in a defense that has rapidly improved since the start of the season.
While the Blue Devils won early in the season in spite of their defense, they’re now winning because of it, as seen while forcing 14 turnovers in their 81-61 triumph over Michigan State in Saturday’s first semifinal. Chief among the improved is freshman forward Justise Winslow, whose development has given Duke the same X-factor that Dekker gives the Badgers.
“I’ve grown a lot in the defensive end,” Winslow said. “I’m guarding bigger guys, stronger guys … In the game I was matched up a lot with Sam Dekker and we both kind of struggled on the offensive end. He had an injury, but I was just young.”
While the star power on both sides of the ball could make for a great display of offense, the battle of the defenses might make for the most intriguing subplot. Wisconsin will have to contain the dribble penetration by Jones that ate them up all night in December. Krzyzewski and Duke will need to find a happy balance between man-to-man and zone to stop a Wisconsin offense that slayed Kentucky’s historic length in its 71-64 win over the previously undefeated Wildcats on Saturday night.
The main worry for Duke: What happens when Okafor is pushed out from the basket to defend the three in an area where he has shown some discomfort as a defender?
Another worry for the Blue Devils is this: The odds of Dekker, Koenig and Nigel Hayes combining for just 12 points like they did in December are slim.
Yet no matter what happens, the Blue Devils are here because of the promise they first showed signs of fulfilling on that cold December night in Madison.
“I think as a team, we realized how good we can be,” Okafor said. “We beat a really good team in their gym. It was just a big confidence booster ... It was a hell of a game.”
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Kevin Kaduk is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at kevinkaduk@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
