Duke Blue Devils' Road to the 2015 National Championship
In beating Wisconsin, 68-63, in a hard-fought national championship game, Duke displayed resiliency, mental toughness and enough talented freshmen to make Kentucky coach John Calipari blink.
Playing a limited rotation of players and battling through first-half foul trouble to key players, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski completed a remarkable season by again pushing all the right buttons.
This might not have been the best of Coach K's five national championship teams at Duke. But it may very well have been his best coaching job.
Asked before Duke's first tournament game in Charlotte what made playing for Krzyzewski so special, freshman Justise Winslow said, "The biggest thing that Coach K has been able to teach me isn't anything physical like skill-wise but more mentally how to approach the game."
Here's a look at how Coach K navigated the Blue Devils down a tough tournament road, with a closer examination of how and why they were the last team left standing.
Coach (Special) K
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At Duke, it really starts and ends with Coach K.
That's in any season, but this one was different for a number of reasons. After last season's ouster by little-known Mercer in Duke's first NCAA tournament game, Krzyzewski admitted his energy level was lacking, and he may not have done the best job preparing his team for the tourney.
This year, he seemed rejuvenated by the arrival of a special freshman class. But the season wasn't always a walk in the park, despite the fact that Duke ultimately racked up 35 wins against only four losses en route to winning it all.
In January, Krzyzewski kicked junior guard Rasheed Sulaimon off the team, the first time in his 35 years at the school that he had done so.
It was later revealed that Sulaimon had earlier been accused and eventually cleared of sexual-assault charges, so there obviously was more to it. But the fact is that Sulaimon's dismissal seemed to send a message to the rest of the team, and, in the long run, it drew them closer together.
The team rallied, largely because of improved team play on defense, to overcome back-to-back losses at North Carolina State and at home to Miami earlier in January and another defeat at Notre Dame in late January. Along the way, Krzyzewski earned the 1,000th win of his career, becoming the first coach in NCAA history to do so.
Fantastic Freshmen, Part I
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The arrival of a group of freshmen headed up by center Jahlil Okafor and point guard Tyus Jones paid great, immediate and repeated dividends throughout the season and especially in the tournament.
Okafor led the team in scoring (17.3 ppg), rebounding (8.5 rpg) and blocked shots (1.4 per game), while shooting .664 from the field. He'll likely be the No. 1 pick in the upcoming NBA draft.
Okafor and Jones both said all along in the recruiting process that they wanted to come to Duke together, and once there they did not disappoint. Jones led the Blue Devils in assists (5.6 apg), steals (1.5) and big plays in big games, while averaging 11.8 points.
Asked about their dual decision to come to Duke before their first tournament game in Charlotte, Jones smiled and said, "People didn't believe us, but we were in it 100 percent together. We approached the recruiting process together. We took visits at the same time. We talked about different schools and stuff like that, but ultimately Duke felt like home to us."
Captain Cook
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It helped Coach K that he had a proverbial coach on the floor at virtually all times in senior guard Quinn Cook.
While Duke's talented freshmen frequently garnered most of the attention of media and opponents alike, Cook was a gem. Named one of the team's captains before the season, he mentored the younger players and even altered his own role on the court to better fit the overall team needs.
It was Cook who pulled Tyus Jones aside, first in the recruiting process and then repeatedly after Jones' arrival on campus, and told freshman he was more than willing to step aside as the team's principal playmaker to accommodate the newcomer. Cook, who had been primarily a point guard in seasons past, took on more of scorer's role this season and was second on the team with a 15.3 ppg average.
It was Cook who roomed with Okafor on the road and worked hard at putting the big freshman at ease in his new surroundings.
And it was Cook who called a players-only team meeting in the hotel room he shared with Okafor immediately after Duke lost to Notre Dame in the ACC tournament, telling his teammates that "everyone is 0-0 in the NCAA tournament, and we can still reach our ultimate goal."
Remembering Mercer
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None of the Duke players forgot what happened to them in the team's opening tournament game against Mercer in 2014.
That included some of the players who weren't even on that team but joined forces for the 2015 season. Among them was Jones, who texted Krzyzewski shortly after the upset by Mercer last year and assured Coach K there wouldn't be a repeat under his watch.
“I just told him that this won't happen again next year,” Jones said, according to The News & Observer.
Part of the problem when Duke lost to Mercer was that the Blue Devils lacked the experience and veteran savvy of the older Mercer team, which included several upperclassmen. The Bears started five seniors that day to Duke's one.
And despite having Jabari Parker, Duke hardly had as many talented freshmen on its 2014 roster. That and the fact that Cook, now a senior, reminded everyone constantly of what had happened against Mercer were the main reasons this year's first tourney game resulted in a blowout of Robert Morris.
Slaying San Diego State
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San Diego State, Duke's opponent in the round of 32, tried to punch back after getting kicked in the teeth by early on.
It didn't work out too well for the Aztecs. After they pulled to within seven points with about 12 minutes left to play, it mostly became the Jahlil Okafor show.
Okafor scored with a dizzying array of low-post moves that resulted in layups and dunks and deft little bank shots, finishing with a game-high 26 points. He also grabbed six rebounds and blocked three shots in a 68-49 rout that sent the Blue Devils on to the Sweet 16.
"I just had a lot of emotion going through me before the game," Okafor told Gerry Ahern of USA Today after the game. "Me and my brothers, we really just wanted this game. It was all emotion."
Justise Is Served
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At times, especially earlier in the season, Justise Winslow was the forgotten star freshman on the Duke roster.
By the time the Blue Devils faced Utah in their Sweet 16 matchup, though, everyone knew who he was.
The athletic, explosive Winslow had totaled 13 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks in the previous round's win over San Diego State. He also had figured prominently in Duke's improved defensive play over not just the previous few games but also over the last month or so of the regular season after being used more at power forward.
So it's not like the Utes hadn't mentioned Winslow in their pregame scouting report.
It just didn't matter.
Playing in Houston on a court that was a mere five miles from where he played his home games in high school, and just two days after he celebrated his 19th birthday, Winslow led Duke to a 63-57 win with a game-high 21 points and 10 rebounds.
"I'm very focused on what this team needs to accomplish," Winslow said (via SI.com) after the game.
Historic Night in Houston
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Houston was no problem for Duke.
After the Blue Devils dispatched Utah, Gonzaga stood in their way in an Elite Eight matchup. At stake was a 12th trip to the Final Four for Krzyzewski, which would tie him with former UCLA coach John Wooden for the most in NCAA tournament history.
Although Gonzaga kept it interesting for a while, Duke eventually pulled away for a decisive 66-52 win. Winslow scored seven consecutive points during one key stretch to help put some distance between the Blue Devils and the Bulldogs, as four Duke players scored in double figures (Okafor, with nine, was not one of them).
Reminded afterward that the Blue Devils had not been to a Final Four in five years, a seemingly long stretch for them under his guidance, Coach K said (via the Los Angeles Times): "It's not a birthright."
Manhandling Michigan State
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A semifinal matchup with gritty Michigan State loomed once the Blue Devils were back in the Final Four in Indianapolis, site of two of Kzyzewski's previous four national championships with Duke.
Coached by Tom Izzo, the Spartans had recovered from a 13-7 start to their season to go 14-4 in the 18 games leading up to the game against the Blue Devils. It seemed it would be a physical test of wills, likely to come down to whichever team could make the most clutch plays and the fewest mistakes at the end.
Alas, Duke jumped out early and never let off the gas. In perhaps their most impressive performance of not only the tournament but maybe the entire season, the Blue Devils rolled to a lopsided 81-61 victory.
It left them just one win away from a fifth title.
Fantastic Freshmen, Part II
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If anyone had said the win over Wisconsin in the championship game would turn on the play of two Duke freshmen, most people would have guessed some combination of Okafor, Winslow and Jones.
But after the teams played to a 31-31 tie in the first half, and with both Okafor and Winslow battling foul trouble, it was the play of Jones and fellow freshman Grayson Allen that bent momentum in Duke's favor after Wisconsin surged ahead by nine points in the second half.
During one long stretch, the two freshmen accounted for 24 of 28 Duke points. Allen, lesser known than his more celebrated freshman teammates in part because he dealt with injuries this season, scored eight in a row at one point, including a driving layup that tied the game at 56. That doubled his scoring average for the season, and he went on to total 16 for the game.
"We were kind of dead in the water, and Grayson put us on his back and carried us," Krzyzewski told CBS in a television interview after the game.
Jones, however, was the biggest hero. He scored 19 of his 23 points in the second half and hit one big shot after another down the stretch to seal the victory. He was named Final Four Most Outstanding Player afterward and said in a television interview that he owed it all to his teammates and the Duke coaching staff.
"My teammates and the coaching staff believed in me all year. They never doubted me, and they trusted me to make plays," Jones told CBS.
Eight Was Enough
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Sulaimon's departure from the team in January left Krzyzewski with just eight scholarship players to share all the playing time, and half of them were freshman.
In the end, it was plenty. The freshmen played like experienced veterans.
Cook, the lone senior of the bunch, helped hold them together through the season and the tournament. But the freshmen made the majority of the biggest plays throughout, especially in the title game against Wisconsin.
"They showed such grit tonight,’’ Krzyzewski told The Associated Press' Eddie Pells (via The Boston Globe) after it all was over. "Our bench was spectacular, and like we said about two months ago, eight is enough. Eight is enough."
Five titles is also enough to place Krzyzewski in additional lofty historical terrain. He now has more NCAA championships than every other coach in history except UCLA's John Wooden, who owns 10.
Unless otherwise noted, quotes were obtained firsthand.
Joe Menzer has written six books, including one entitled Four Corners for which he spent quite a bit of time around Coach K and Duke basketball. He now writes about college basketball and other sports for Bleacher Report, and you can follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.
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