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| Tuesday, October 15 Updated: October 18, 2:27 PM ET Duke laid foundation for success in London By Andy Katz ESPN.com |
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LONDON -- The Krzyzewski family has had a number of invitations from friends to make a vacation jaunt to London. Each time they'd agree to go, something would come up to change their plans. But each time, they would always say some day they'd make the trip, even for just a weekend. In the span of two weeks, Mike Krzyzewski has made the equivalent of weekend jaunts to London twice -- once on a recruiting trip with assistant Chris Collins in an attempt to convince Luol Deng to make Duke his college choice; the second with wife Mickie, his staff and current team with the purpose of putting together yet another Final Four team, if not in 2003, then certainly in 2004.
Krzyzewski will have to wait until one of the top players in the class of 2003 signs his name to a letter of intent and the heart of the ACC schedule to know if the eventual goal of either trip is met. But both were well worth the effort. "We're going back with a really good spirit and everyone feeling good about themselves and also about each other," Krzyzewski said. "This is really, really good for us." Duke went 3-1 on the trip, but the record is meaningless. The Blue Devils played five games in three days, four exhibitions and one scrimmage, against older professionals in England and from Belgium. The games were physical, real tussles underneath the basket with bodies flying against the posts and plenty of hard fouls. Technical fouls were common, with even coach K getting rung up once. "I didn't anticipate the number of Americans on the teams we played," Krzyzewski said. "They all played in colleges and all of a sudden they really wanted to beat Duke, maybe more so than an English team wants to beat Duke, because we have been one of the most successful programs. That helped us, too. "The games and scrimmages were much better than I anticipated, and the intensity of the games was better than what I thought it would be. Some of the guys we were playing were fighting for a job. This was much better than a (regular) exhibition game (against an all-star team)." Duke's six freshmen received valuable game experience as their immature bodies got a challenge that a weight room stamina test couldn't duplicate. The Blue Devils learned that freshman forward Shavlik Randolph has the inside-out game to become an elite players. Forwards Shelden Williams and Michael Thompson gave Duke a post presence, something they lacked last season when Carlos Boozer was out of the game. Guard J.J. Redick, when rested and with fresh legs, is another lethal shooter. Lee Melchionni, a freshman who took one for the recruiting class when he walked on this season because Duke was out of scholarships but not roster space under the maximum five newcomer rule, made a crushing 3-pointer in a 22-point comeback win Monday. That alone made the trip a worthwhile experience for him. As for the returning players? Senior forward Dahntay Jones grabbed the leadership role. Junior point Chris Duhon got pushed by freshman Sean Dockery and reasserted himself by the end of the weekend. Senior center Casey Sanders went from the doghouse to a contributor in eight hours and two games. Junior forward Nick Horvath put down Hemingway long enough to finally play with confidence after spending much of last winter battling injuries. Sophomore guard Daniel Ewing emerged as potentially the team's best all-around scorer.
Not a bad assessment for the coaching staff to judge for themselves before Oct. 15. The plan to take this trip was one of the smartest moves Krzyzewski has made in his two-plus decades at Duke. The timing was everything with the six freshmen, a fall break and a foreign trip exemption available to him. Be jealous and bitter of Duke if you must, but the reality is the Blue Devils got 10 practice days (which the NCAA allows before a foreign tour) and played five games before anyone had their third practice. And, now, a number of other schools in the same situation (young team, fall break and a foreign trip available) are already calling trip promoter Basketball Travelers International to get into a similar event next year. "We've always tried to stay ahead of the curve -- the right way," Krzyzewski said. "We try to anticipate change and we've never been afraid to try something new. Depending on how this team does, whether or not it develops and comes on better than most people anticipate, then you might be able to say it started in London." Krzyzewski has experimented during seasons with tough back-to-back games, occasionally following an ACC road game in-state on a Saturday with a tough home game, say against a Notre Dame or St. John's, on a Sunday to test the stamina of his players. But he has never coached a team in consecutive doubleheaders. And this wasn't some AAU-type tournament. He was as intense on the sideline as he would be in February. Assistants Collins and Steve Wojciechowski said maybe more so because he wanted the new players to see how intense he could get come ACC action. "Never done anything like this and I'm not sure I would do it again unless we had to ... and we had to and we took advantage of the opportunity," Krzyzewski said. "We got a lot out of this," Ewing said. "We learned how to be tough, to play under pressure, to come back. This was a real good trip for the freshmen, and all six of them played well." And the entire team bonded, probably, more so in four days than they would at any point in the season.
The Duke players traveled together across the pond in a seven-hour trip, and found themselves with nobody else but themselves to hang with for four days. So they hung around in the airports, and finally explored central London's famed Piccadilly Square together when they had some free time late Monday night. They got on each other when songs broke out on the bus -- especially when American Idol want-to-be and Michael Jackson-fan Randolph got into the act. The Blue Devils may have started the trip as a team, but they were a tight-knit group by Tuesday morning when they spent a few hours in Gatwick Airport waiting for their flight home. Going through tighter security quizzing, they even gained a newfound respect for the managers who had to deal with loads of luggage for them that included state-of-the-art video and editing equipment. And the vets started the process of being mentors to the freshmen ... by mid-October. The telling sign came Monday afternoon, when during the comeback against the Brighton Bears, Dockery went past Krzyzewski to Duhon who was deep on the bench. Duhon stood up and pointed out to Dockery what he needed to do to break down the Bears and get to the basket. Krzyzewski calls this links -- from player-to-player, player-to-assistant coach (all three of his assistants are former players) and ultimately to him. "A number of people can help you, and we have unselfish kids who aren't jealous," Krzyzewski said. "Sean is pretty good and plays the same position as Duhon, but he's still helping him out. That's the nature of our team the last two decades." "This showed that our freshmen are willing to learn and take things seriously," Jones said. "Our freshmen were enthusiastic and listened to coach. They took criticism, and for them to compete like this will really help us." The trip was far from perfect on the court. Duke's defense was sporadic, at least in terms of positioning. The effort was there, but the Blue Devils let the pros too often get by them into the lane, failing to stop the drive. Help from the forwards was late a number of times, leading to fouls. The perimeter shooting was erratic, but a number of the shots did go in and out and were on line, and at least looked good upon release. And the post presence will be a work in progress with Williams, Thompson and Sanders needing to be more physical while staying out of foul trouble. "You can't show how good you are as a team in practice. You have to get games and see how players handle fouls," Duhon said. "There were no problems with attitude." "The only bad thing could be fatigue," Ewing said. Duhon said the Blue Devils do have an early advantage on the rest of the country and especially the ACC. Jones, however, said it would even out when the Blue Devils are practicing and a number of other teams are in early-season tournaments such as the Maui Invitational and the Preseason NIT. Regardless, Krzyzewski is cognizant of monitoring the freshmen and ensuring they don't hit the wall too early. The team will take Wednesday and Thursday off from practice, although they will have strength testing. Krzyzewski is conducting a clinic with 700 coaches for Nike this weekend with the Blue Devils as the students in the tutorial for practices Friday through Sunday. And then he may give them two days off next week. "These days that you think you got in advance you'll have to give them back, because if you don't, you'll get punched for it later," Krzyzewski said of preventing burnout. "I want to give them back as soon as possible." Throughout the weekend, Krzyzewski was intense on the court, reflective off of it and almost was getting younger by the day. It was, at times, as if he were still building this national power -- which, in theory, he is with this youthful team. The Hall of Fame coach is clearly revitalized with this crew and his second surgically repaired hip. "I actually got chills talking to our kids (Monday) because it was one of those growth moments that excites you," Krzyzewski said. The consensus among the staff is that Duhon isn't going anywhere but back to Duke next season, and that would mean the Blue Devils would lose only Jones and Sanders within the rotation. If they add Deng and these freshmen develop as expected, '04 could be the season that they make the title run. But that doesn't rule out any shockers come this March or even April. This team will likely lose games in the ACC at places such as Maryland and Virginia, where the freshmen haven't been, but they will likely get better by March and could be like Arizona was in 1997 -- a fifth-place conference team that wins the title -- or at least in this case makes a deep run in the tourney. All of that makes Krzyzewski looking like he's here for the long haul. He has a "lifetime" contract and is on track to coach the next 15 years, when he'll be pushing 70. "Whenever I don't feel the passion to do it (that's when he would consider retiring)," Krzyzewski said. "I have had two hips replaced, the second one five months ago and the other one three years ago. The last five years have been good, we've won something like 164 games, but it has been taxing on me physically. Where as now I feel really young. "I don't have pain on a daily basis," Krzyzewski added. "I can actually go and show kids on the court what to do and I couldn't last year, or at least the last half of last year. It's not that I'm going to demonstrate dunks or anything, but I can be hands-on. I have that personal touch, rather than an assistant do that." Krzyzewski was vintage Coach K this past weekend. He was back to being a real teacher again, with one of his youngest teams, getting them to understand what it is to be at Duke, to play for him, to carry themselves in a proper manner on a trip that could benefit them personally and this team for the next two seasons. Duke was the first to pull off this Midnight Madness weekend escape abroad. The success of this trip means they won't be the last. Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com. |
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