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| Monday, January 20 Duke brings best out of Maryland -- again By Curry Kirkpatrick ESPN The Magazine |
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COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- The champions were bewitched. Florida, Notre Dame and Indiana (avenging the 2002 NCAA title game) had already beaten them this season. They were bothered. Wake Forest (not to mention a referee, for stripesakes) had manhandled them as well as taunted them into a near-fight earlier in the week. And then on Saturday they looked mostly bewildered right there in their magnificent new $107 million Comcast Center -- when one of the opposition's raw freshmen weaved jerkily around, across and all the way through more screens, picks and roadblocks than Diana Ross, to bury two jumpers at the end of the first half in the latest version of college baskets' juiciest rivalry.
That made the score Maryland 37, Duke 43 -- yeah, those same old Number One, Unbeaten Blue Devils … were … baaaack -- and all the local celebrities who had braved frozen temperatures to turn out for the grand event were perilously close to soaking their sorrows in the nearest vat of steaming clam chowder. Not that newly elected Gov. Bob Ehrlich, Ravens' linebacker Ray Lewis, CNN political toady Bob Novak (who doubles as the team's annual toad mascot) and ESPN's Scot Van Pelt, a Maryland alum whose prancing, waving entrance in his nifty red T-shirt cast off vibrant vibes among Comcast's screeching student section, would be giving up on their beloved Turtles. It's just that all the doubts about the Maryland cred seemed to be creeping in again. Was Duke's special rookie, J.J. Redick, and Duke's rejuvenated senior, Dahntay Jones -- who between them had blitzed Maryland in the first half for 23 points -- just another version of Jay Williams and Shane Battier come back to haunt the Terps? Were Duke's other heralded youngsters ready to find a comfort zone and out-play their enemy elders as they had done all winter? (Maryland started five seniors, Duke three freshmen) Was the visitors' Coach K, who had bravely run Redick (with two fouls) back in at the end of the half so the infant assassin could specifically cut the home team apart with those two long daggers, again about to torment his opposing mentor, Coach Sweat? (That would be Maryland's Gary Williams -- whose voluminous sweat glands are rumored to have been responsible for the deterioration of old Cole Field House.) But the answers thundered through Comcast immediately after the halftime break. No! No! and No! The occasion would mirror not two years ago, when Duke staged two storybook comebacks (one in the national semifinals) to ruin Maryland's season. It was more like last year when Maryland reversed everything, Williams trumped Krzyzewski and the Terps whomped Duke, 87-73, as everybody realized just how much the Sweat Boy's squad could make everybody else perspire. Fully one season later, after Maryland roared out of the intermission to lay down one superb 9-0 run, then later another 10-0 run on the Blue Devils, and went on to overwhelm them by an almost identical 87-72 -- the most lopsided Maryland win in the series in over two decades -- it is not so far-fetched to imagine the Terps making another strong march through March in defense of their title. As for Duke, which among freshmen nerves, lame inside play and vulnerability against a press, missed 11 of 20 free throws (after beating Virginia from the line on 37 of 40 FT shooting): "I've coached No. 1 teams ... and that's not where we are right now," said Krzyzewski. "I don't know who is, but I know we're not. I take what they give me. Number One takes care of itself in March." I just want to be number one with my wives -- PLURAL? -- my daughters and my dogs ... and I'll be in a good place on this earth." (Uh, not if Micki K doesn't realize usually brilliant hubby sometimes has slip of tongue. Or she finds out about those other wives.) In the Maryland locker room Williams was required to explain the home crowd's reaction. "This was only Duke! What's with your crowd rushing the court? You're the defending champs, aren't you?" one wag asked him after the Comcasters went all Cameron Crazy -- NoCanDuhon … You've Been Whored … Shavlik My B----s were some of the more printable signs waved by the frenzied Maryland students, most of whom also brazenly wore "F--- Duke" T-shirts and booed Krzyzewski and his players at every deafening turn, not to mention turnover. "That was last year's team," said Williams, who was smiling, not sweating. "You can talk all you want about how your guys have played well (in losses against ranked teams). But you have to get a watershed win to prove anything to people -- and to yourselves. This team needed that. The students know we've struggled. They were good about rushing the court. It was a calm rush." There was nothing calm, however, about the way:
Indeed, in that 10-0 stretch where Maryland expanded a one-point lead to 67-56 (Duke never got closer), the Blue Devils' offense consisted of Chris Duhon, Jones (a game-high 26 points) and Redick casting off from somewhere near the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. When Redick threw up two iron clangers in a row, Kryzyewski yanked him out of the game.
"Coach got on us about being more aggressive and I took it personally," said Randle, the sloe-eyed Sleepster who seemed to drowse through that Wake Forest loss in which the Terps were out-boarded by the nation's best rebounding team, 49-36. They reduced a 17-point deficit to two before losing, 81-72, and arriving back home at 3 a.m. last Thursday morning. It didn't help Williams' sleep that not only did his team lose its composure against Wake with a few Terps almost throwing down against a few Demon Deacons -- Blake and Wake's Josh Howard are among the better trash talkers in the ACC -- but that referee Doug Shows called technicals on Williams and Blake (the latter with 16 seconds left) and then "threatened" his point guard. "You're missing a good game, ref," Blake apparently said to Shows. "I'll see you next week," Shows apparently said to Blake in a manner Maryland perceived to be threatening. "Steve said he didn't care if he ever saw (Shows) again," laughed Williams. Following the game and Williams going public with the controversy, Shows was suspended by the ACC for one game. "Gary got in some trouble with the league," said a source inside the Maryland program. "But we got (Shows') ass. We're not going to put up with that." Prior to the key matchup with Duke, then, the Maryland practices conducted by the intense Williams must have been, uh, X-rated?
"Nah, not mean and nasty. No F-bombs," said Randle. "You expect us to believe that? You got any $3 bills on you?" said Josh Barr of The Washington Post. "For real. I'm telling you, Coach was calm and cool," said Randle. "It was kind of unnerving."
"Jason was on the attack all the time, trying to score," said Blake. "Duhon sets up his players more. You don't have to cover him as hard the whole game." Kryzyewski, who has defended the struggling Duhon all season, saying he had "multiple responsibilities," can hardly hide his junior leader's deficiencies forever. He was literally close-mouthed when asked about Duhon. "I don't talk about individual players in losses," he said. "It's very sad. I'm disappointed, disheartened," said Duhon. More big-picture, Coach K was asked by a reporter if Maryland had supplanted Duke as the best program in the ACC. (It wasn't Van Pelt who asked.) "What a dumb question," he said. "They have a great program. We do too. It's a dumb question."
Moreover, after Blake wandered into foul trouble in the second half, both John Gilchrist and Chris McCray of Maryland's freshman class spelled him admirably. Gilchrist is the husky kid from Virginia Beach whom N.C. State thought would be their point guard of the future until he changed directions and wound up in College Park. "He thinks he's really good already and I'm not going to tell him otherwise," laughed Williams. Speaking of which, on Saturday Gilchrist was the quickest player on the court, changing directions with a quirky, head-bobbing style in the manner of Oscar de la Hoya, and disrupting enough stuff so that another new guy, 6-9 JC transfer Jamar Smith, could get the ball enough to fill up his own dance card. "We got no big guys who can jump," Williams joked "But Jamar is different. He's so quick to the ball. He thinks he can score on anybody and in that one stretch (8 points, 6 boards) he played great. I tell our guys all the time: We're no longer Lonny Baxter and Juan Dixon (last year's Terp star who sat on the Maryland bench on Saturday, then later that night scored his pro career high of 19 points for the Wizards against the Sixers). This year everybody's got to do his own job." If all the Terps continue to do so, stay tuned for more chills and thrills in the next Maryland-Duke clash ... and the next? ... and the next? As the fiercely proud Redick -- who has already become the heart and soul of the Blue Devils -- left the court eliminated on fouls, he had a few well chosen words for his conquerors. "What did he say? I couldn't quite hear him," said Nicholas. Hopefully, it was something like "... I'll see you on Feb. 19."
Bounce Passes … it will probably be only minutes before Matt Doherty claims responsibility for the broken toe of Jennifer Aniston, the release of Kangaroo Jack and the nuclear menace in North Korea. If Doherty goes, by the way, isn't his successor obvious? Steve Mariucci. Sunny Bona: A constant barrage of emails (well, two) informs me that the item expressing my disappointment at St. Bonaventure's policy of allowing the school's basketball players to speak to the media only after victories -- not losses -- was woefully outdated. To wit, due to a "mis-communication," coach Jan van Breda Kolff had nothing to do with such a policy. And, indeed, if it ever even existed, it doesn't anymore. My apologies to the Franciscan Brothers In an un-related matter, isn't this Clinton-Lewinsky thing fairly disgusting? Curry Kirkpatrick is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at curry.kirkpatrick@espn3.com. |
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