Too early to put Duke in Final Four? Not after what Devils did in Madison
I’ll say it again and again this month: It is pure folly to take a game in December and draw from it any grand conclusions about what will happen in March. December should be a feeling-out period, where we get indications of who’ll be the breakout players and the underachieving teams — but one in which most of our thoughts should end with, “But we’ll see.”
And again and again, I’ll ignore my measured wisdom and dive into the world of caffeinated hype, of too-early conclusions, of speculation for Game 40 in Indianapolis in April when we’re standing here at Game 8 in Madison in December.
Sorry, but I just can’t keep myself from drawing a direct line from December to March. Especially after sitting in the Kohl Center on Wednesday night, a jam-packed, March-like atmosphere pitting No. 2 Wisconsin against No. 4 Duke, and watching a Duke team that’s starting three freshmen play like the calm, composed veterans on the road against a Wisconsin team that returns every contributor but one from a team that’s fresh off Bo Ryan’s first Final Four.
Big conclusions after a dominating 80-70 Duke victory, the first true road game for the nation’s top recruiting class? Here are a few:
• Kentucky is the No. 1 team in the nation, one that has a legit shot at going undefeated, but Duke (8-0) is No. 1-A.
• Jahlil Okafor is the second coming of Tim Duncan, and Justise Winslow is a bigger and better version of Victor Oladipo, and both are surefire top-five picks. Tyus Jones is the highest-IQ elite point guard the college game has seen since Chris Paul. Senior Quinn Cook is one of the nation’s best three-point shooters. Rasheed Sulaimon is thriving in his diminished role.
• Mike Krzyzewski, in the season in which he gets his 1,000th career victory, is heading to the Final Four — and, if Duke (or someone else) can vanquish the Kentucky behemoth, to his fifth national title.
Clearly, I gotta lay off the Red Bull.
But it’s hard not to get this excited (and this hyperbolic) after seeing Duke’s 10-point victory over a Badgers team that still seems primed to make a run at its second consecutive Final Four — especially once Sam Dekker gets his sprained ankle back to 100 percent. As Wisconsin point guard Traevon Jackson said afterward, “It was close, but we never made them nervous at all.” That’s saying something about a Duke team that’s led by three teenagers who never had been in a road environment close to this before.
“We’re about as young as we've ever been, really since my third year when (Johnny) Dawkins, (Tommy) Amaker, (Mark) Alarie and those kids were freshmen,” Coach K said after the game. “They didn’t look like freshmen tonight.”
That’s the thing: This team’s three freshman starters never look like freshmen. Perhaps it’s because Jones and Okafor have been best friends since third grade, and the two have played with Winslow since sixth grade. There’s a history there, and that means something when you’re playing the eighth game of your college career in front of a deafening crowd of more than 17,000.
The chemistry on this team was incredible for such a young group (which ranks 320th in the nation in experience, according to KenPom.com). That chemistry showed on defense, where Winslow sets the tone for an active, switching Duke defense that’s vastly improved from the team that was upset by Mercer in the opening game of the NCAA tournament last season. A year ago, KenPom.com had Duke ranked 116th in the nation in defensive efficiency; right now, Duke ranks 18th.
And the offense, the nation’s most efficient, had one of the most efficient nights you could hope for. Duke shot 65 percent from the field and made 7 of 12 from three. Okafor, the young man expected to be the No. 1 overall pick in next year’s NBA Draft, had only 13 points, but when he had the ball in the post, he was close to unstoppable. On one play, guarded by Wisconsin star Frank Kaminsky, he stood with his back to the basket, backed down, then used one arm to swim around the 7-footer while he palmed the ball in the other hand. As he laid it in the hoop for an easy bucket, it looked like the father of a toddler laying a Nerf ball in a kiddie hoop.
There are a couple more conclusions I’ll make from this game. Whereas Kentucky is the nation’s most physically overwhelming team — the Mack truck of college basketball — Duke is a Monet, a warrior poet, a team that plays with toughness combined with artistry. The team is a joy to watch — especially on offense, and especially when Okafor has the ball in the post or Jones has it on the perimeter.
Coach K’s take after the game wasn’t as caffeinated as mine. He said the requisite coachspeak for this point of the season — it’s a process, we need to get better, blah blah blah — but he did have one big takeaway from this game that speaks volumes in December about Duke’s chances in March.
“It confirms at a higher level what we already felt, and that’s that we're really together,” he said. “We have really good heart.”
Remember that Kentucky team from two seasons ago, the uber-talented young group that went to the NIT? What that Kentucky team lacked was cohesiveness among its freshmen. That’s what this Duke team has in spades. That’s why, after Wednesday night, I fully expect Coach K’s crew to be playing in Indianapolis in April.
Before the game, these freshmen were nervous. Jones spoke of having butterflies. This is what he’d dreamed of in college basketball, playing in a hostile road environment with a packed house and a frenzied student section. Coach K spoke to his young team in the locker room before the game.
“He was telling us to just play our game,” Jones told me afterward. “Don’t get outside ourselves. Don’t try to overhype it.”
Sorry, Tyus, but I just did.
Follow Reid Forgrave on Twitter @reidforgrave or email him at ReidForgrave@gmail.com.
Tyus Jones is just a freshman, but he and the Blue Devils already have a following — even in Madison.
