Brownlow: Duke may see an opponent in March that, like Virginia, will not back down
Posted February 8, 2022 12:40 a.m. EST
Durham, N.C. — After dunking all over North Carolina on Saturday and coming a step short of planting a Duke flag inside of the paint in the Dean Dome, the Blue Devils relished every bit of their blowout win over their arch rivals — including quieting the Smith Center crowd.
It was going to be a quick turnaround when Duke, up to two spots in the poll to No. 7, would host Virginia less than 48 hours after the Carolina game ended. In their home arena, with legions of fans packed into the bleachers, painted in blue and full-throatedly rooting on their Blue Devils.
Cameron had a big-game feel on Monday night. It didn't hurt that the students, who've been camping out around a month for the Carolina game to end the season, were extra excited after the convincing win over UNC.
Virginia head coach Tony Bennett knew exactly what awaited his team. He had one player in his rotation that had played in Cameron in front of fans — point guard Kihei Clark, generously listed at 5-10 and the smallest player on the court, but lion-hearted enough to tie up Duke's 6-10 center Theo John for a jump ball on a rebound John appeared to secure and give Virginia one more try at what would eventually be the game-winner.
But Virginia's path to a win started far earlier.
"You have a tendency sometimes to make this bigger than it is when you come in here (to Cameron) because it’s an unbelievable atmosphere. You grow up watching it. You know how talented their team is, Coach K, all of that," Bennett said, "but we just said be laser-focused to start and play our game. Get it to our kind of game if we can, and battle… and I thought the guys did that."
This Duke team has had an edge to it all year, a defensive-minded, tough team that wants that to be its identity. It wants to intimidate its opponents. It certainly did that to North Carolina.
Duke can be intimidating enough to face if you're in your own building. When you're in Cameron, it's like a bad day suddenly turns into a really bad day. The way the crowd can lift the Blue Devils, almost breathing life into them on the rare occasions they lack it, feels almost supernatural. It's almost like everything starts going Duke's way and starts going
You have to fight for every single thing you get in that building. Few teams are tough enough to do it.
It's a familiar movie: a team that desperately needs a win comes to Cameron in February or March and pushes Duke to the brink, but can't get over the hump in the end because it's just too hard.
It's a movie that both Duke and Virginia have seen plenty, one that usually ends in heartbreak for either Virginia or whomever the hapless opponent is that runs out of gas late in games like this when Duke goes on a crowd-fueled run that leaves everyone's ears ringing after the game and takes control of it. The movie usually ends the same way. It's predictable.
Virginia wanted to change the ending this time.
Virginia's Jayden Gardner, an ECU transfer who went to Heritage High School, has. He was born seeing it, in a way, as he entered this world at Duke Hospital and grew up in Durham. He went to Duke games.
He played at UNC once already, and that one didn't go so well. This one, though?
"This one is the whole cake," Gardner said. "This is everything, man."
When Gardner, a 6-6. 246-pound forward, walked out onto the court at Cameron for the first time, he couldn't help but feel awe.
"When we got out there on the court, they looked much bigger in person," Gardner said. "I was like, 'wow, this dude's big'."
'This dude', of course, was Paolo Banchero, the unstoppable force for Duke who is averaging 17.5 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists. And Gardner often found himself guarding that 6-10, 250-pound 'dude'.
He wasn't alone, of course. Virginia's defensive scheme is to double opposing big men quickly and aggressively, making sure they can't see over the top of it to find open teammates. They also did a good job of making sure Banchero didn't touch the ball at all, but when he did, he was swarmed. A willing passer, Banchero would find teammates when he could but they weren't able to cash in and loosen up Virginia's pressure by hitting outside shots.
Duke is a physical team that is unrelenting, and plenty of teams this season have faded over time even if they challenged Duke early. Their identity this year was a team whose offense is a work in progress but one that will smother you defensively.
Virginia perhaps took that a bit personally. And when opponents usually go away down the stretch, fade, lose their legs, stop hitting shots and making plays? Virginia decided that no, it would not.
"I think (Duke) got annoyed," Gardner said. "Coach (Bennett) was saying that they didn't want a game like this — a defensive, grind-it-out game — and that's what kind of game we made it."
It was testy, too. Duke assistant Nolan Smith and Bennett exchanged words, and tempers flared on both sidelines before the coaches came together to make peace. Players exchanged (un)pleasantries throughout. Virginia's bigs — Francisco Caffaro, Kadin Shedrick and Gardner — were relentless on the glass, combining for 20 rebounds (eight offensive boards) all while getting Duke's front line either into foul trouble (Mark Williams) or shutting them down in the case of Banchero.
Few fouls were called under the basket as players from both teams sometimes full-on shoved each other out of the way.
Virginia seemed to be, for lack of a better word, a pest that would not leave Duke alone.
"I mean, it wasn't part of the game plan but I guess how hard we play, our defense, we definitely got under their skin," Shedrick said.
Virginia hit just two of its final eight shots. It looked, for awhile, like they were following that script that so many Duke opponents in Cameron have.
Gardner got a good look, and his shot rimmed out. Then the ball was tipped around and John came up with it, until the comparatively tiny Clark ran over and grabbed viciously at the ball, refusing to let John take sole possession.
With 10 seconds left, Virginia would get one last shot at it. And who else but Clark would find Reece Beekman — who had stolen the ball away from an unaware Jeremy Roach, who was trying to run the clock out, and put it in to tie the game with 1:48 to go — for the game-winner.
None of this, of course, was a surprise to Mike Krzyzewski, who has seen just about all there is to see in basketball in his 40-plus years as a coach.
He told his team at halftime, before the game, during the game that Virginia wasn't going to let it be easy.
"(Krzyzewski) talked to us at halftime. He talked to us before the game. He told us it’s not going to be easy," Williams said. "You’ve got to beat human nature."
Human nature is usually an opponent Duke basketball beats on a regular basis.
Fatigue, though, is not. Although everyone around Duke refused to blame it on that.
"I don’t think it was exhaustion; we’re not in the desert," Krzyzewski said. "I call it not having a rearview mirror, and you can’t look back. It’s one of the reasons I’m doing this (final) season the way that I’m doing it, so that I don’t fall into that."
Freshman point guard Trevor Keels, who was a big reason Duke took the lead at all, agreed.
“We’re high D-I players. We’ve got the best trainers in the world, so we can’t make excuses and say that our bodies were hurting from the UNC game and stuff like that," Keels said. "We’ve got to prepare better mentally and be ready for when people punch us in the mouth. We’re going to get everybody’s best shot.”
That's true for Duke even during the regular season. But it's especially going to be true in March. And it's going to be true from here on out. ACC teams have exactly one opportunity for a quality win in this league, and that opportunity is Duke.
But Krzyzewski was rightly concerned going into the game because this two-day turnaround was the closest simulation Duke will get to an NCAA Tournament turnaround. Play a good team one day, have a day off, then face another better team (usually) with not a lot of rest or prep in between.
"If you’re fortunate and you’ve earned the right to play in the NCAA Tournament and you win a big game on a Thursday or Friday, you have a quick turnaround and you have to win another one," Krzyzewski said. "It’s a bridge you have to cross, and you have to learn how to cross it. We weren’t able to do that in this Saturday/Monday lineup — and you’re always going to play against a good team. Virginia could go far in the NCAA Tournament, so you play a team that’s well coached and has veteran players.
"There’s no question that we played well Saturday night, but we didn’t play well tonight. Virginia had a lot to do with that, but I’m not blaming it all on that because it takes away from their effort — they were well prepared, and they did a hell of a job against us and it was hard to score against them."
