SAN FRANCISCO — Before Duke beat Arkansas 78-69 on Saturday night in the Elite Eight of the men’s basketball tournament, securing Mike Krzyzewski’s record 13th trip to the Final Four in his final season, it was easier to talk about what the Blue Devils were missing instead of what they have.
Their youth and late-season slips — as evidenced in losses to North Carolina in the regular-season finale and to Virginia Tech in the ACC tournament title game — offered enough evidence for the doubters to question their staying power on a stage that has ousted more freshman stars than it has rewarded.
Over the past two games, however, Duke has grown and showcased the potency many had expected when Krzyzewski signed Trevor Keels, Paolo Banchero and AJ Griffin and paired them with returnees Jeremy Roach, Mark Williams, Wendell Moore Jr. and Marquette transfer Theo John. Toward the end of the first half on Saturday, Duke demonstrated the matchup problems that any team it sees in New Orleans must decipher.
Banchero hit a 3-pointer to extend Duke’s lead to seven inside two minutes. He’s a 6-foot-10 athlete who can’t be left alone on the perimeter. Williams, a 7-footer, gracefully soared to the rim and scored, too. And Keels hit a deep 3-pointer that gave the Blue Devils a 12-point lead at the half, making Arkansas jog back to the locker room with the look of a team that had been worn down and perplexed by a unit with five players who are projected to get picked in the first round of this summer’s NBA draft.
Banchero finished with 16 points, one of six Duke players who finished Saturday’s game with at least nine points. The Blue Devils made 40% of their 3-point attempts and eliminated the team that had eliminated Gonzaga, the top seed in the NCAA tournament, on Thursday.
The questions in the second half of the game centered on Duke’s potential margin of victory. The Blue Devils’ lead was never threatened.
This is not an NCAA tournament that has obeyed logic. Saint Peter’s run has been magical. North Carolina, Saint Peter’s opponent on Sunday in the Elite Eight, lost to Kentucky by 29 points in December. Villanova didn’t win the Big East. Miami was picked to finish 12th in the ACC in the league’s preseason poll. Yes, Kansas is still alive, but the three other No. 1 seeds — Baylor, Arizona and Gonzaga — are all gone.
Duke’s run is one of the few things that has made sense in this NCAA tournament. The most talented team in the field continues to win. And it has reached its peak at the right time.
Krzyzewski, who made his first Final Four in 1986, became the first head coach in Division I history, men’s or women’s, to reach a Final Four in five different decades, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. The 36 years between Krzyzewski’s first and last Final Four appearances are the most by any head coach since 1950.
He also is the 10th coach to advance to the Final Four in his final season as a Division I head coach and first since UNC’s Bill Guthridge in 2000.
And now, the Blue Devils will go to New Orleans with a chance to send Krzyzewski into retirement with a sixth national championship. It would be a Hollywood ending for the legendary coach’s career. But it also would be more than that.
Krzyzewski’s longevity alone is not his most impressive trait. It’s his ability to adapt through different eras. He won two championships in the physical 1990s. He won a ring in 2001 by playing through guard Jay Williams and versatile star Shane Battier. He won a title in 2010 with a group of sharpshooters, including Jon Scheyer, his successor. And he won another ring in 2015 with Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones, proof that he wouldn’t take a step back in the one-and-done era.
If he wins a sixth national title with this group, however, it would give him a 31-year gap between his first title in 1991 and his final title. John Wooden won 10 rings in 12 seasons. But no coach in the history of college basketball and perhaps any sport has ever experienced that level of success across three decades.
When the Blue Devils lost to North Carolina in its regular-season finale, the possibility of Duke cutting down the nets in Krzyzewski’s final year seemed too good to be true. After Saturday’s win over Arkansas, however, it’s possible that the Blue Devils might be too good to lose again in their head coach’s last year.
“My guys are really doing a great job,” Krzyzewski said after his team’s win over Texas Tech on Thursday. “They’re really doing a great job. And we beat guys who were doing a great job on the other team.”