SAN FRANCISCO — Forty-two years in, finally a first in Mike Krzyzewski’s year of lasts. Everything he had done, all of the trophies polished and banners hung and awards moldering away on shelves in his office, and there was still new territory to be explored. To be, finally, conquered.
And it took not only everything Duke had to do it, but everything Krzyzewski probably didn’t know he had, too — going against everything that built Duke into the program it is now by going zone in the second half, then turning agency over to his players when they said they wanted to go back to man-to-man in the late stages.
Krzyzewski’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win in the Pacific time zone was really not all that surprising a first, given the lack of opportunity. But Duke players talking Krzyzewski out of playing zone? An absolutely shocking first.
“We just wanted to give them a different look,” said Jeremy Roach, the Duke guard who has emerged as the Blue Devils’ game-closer. “We kind of were in zone for probably about a seven-minute stretch or something like that, so just give them a different look, and it worked.”
Empowered, the players took over and closed Texas Tech out the same way they closed out Michigan State four days earlier. Duke finished that game with five straight makes. It took eight straight Thursday to put away Texas Tech. The end was looming out there, just as it was Sunday, and the Blue Devils once again slapped it away and would not back down.
With that West Coast zero turning to a one with this 78-73 win, Arkansas now stands between Duke and 12 Final Fours becoming one last 13th, having denied Gonzaga a rematch with Duke. The Blue Devils will feel good about their chances. Having proven the end of the Michigan State game was no fluke, the Blue Devils managed to produce an even more impressive game-ending performance.
Paolo Banchero once again made unstoppable individual plays, instinctual plays he hadn’t made before. Roach was once again a stone-cold killer in the late going, finding space against Texas Tech’s defense to get to the rim.
But it was the defensive switch, with Duke overwhelmed by Texas Tech’s strength and physicality — the Red Raiders were dominating the offensive glass — that turned the game on its head. The zone took Texas Tech out of its rhythm long enough for Duke’s offense to gather some momentum, and the Blue Devils were unstoppable once they did.
Going zone isn’t the anathema it once was for Krzyzewski, and it was worth a line on Duke’s scouting report and a few moments in Thursday morning’s walkthrough, but it certainly wasn’t anything Texas Tech probably expected. Nor, given how little Duke has used it this season, did anyone seriously at Duke.
For decades, man-to-man defense was as fundamental a tenet of Duke’s program as profanity, but all that time spent with Jim Boeheim rubbed off on Krzyzewski eventually. In 2018, going zone with some frequency practically saved Duke’s season, when for all the Blue Devils’ offensive firepower, they couldn’t stop anyone.
It got Duke all the way to the regional final that year — out-Boeheiming Boeheim against Syracuse in the semifinal — and would have gotten the Blue Devils to the Final Four if Grayson Allen’s layup hadn’t rolled off the rim against Kansas. Along the way, Grant Hill mocked his alma mater on television for slapping the floor while playing zone.
But that was then and this was now, and while the zone was still in Duke’s quiver, the Blue Devils had used it only in a few extreme cases this season. Then, with everything on the line, Krzyzewski pulled the trigger when Texas Tech scored nearly at will to open the second half.
Banchero hit a baseline jumper to put Duke up 69-68 with just under three minutes to go, and Duke called timeout. In the huddle, the players told Krzyzewski it was time to go back to man — in unison he claimed, “like a Catholic boys choir.” The coach who so often does all the talking did all the listening.
“With this team, they’re so young and they’re still growing,” Krzyzewski said. “Whenever they can own something, they’re going to do it better than if we just run it. When they said that, I felt they’re going to own it. They’ll make it work, and that’s probably more important than strategy during that time. So that’s the way I looked at it. I’m not sure I’ve been in that many situations like that before.”
The switch worked at both ends: following the old Krzyzewski maxim that offense flows from defense, Duke made its next seven shots. In the final minute, after yet another Roach basket, they slapped the floor, like the Duke teams of old, reaching out into the past to touch spiritual hands with four decades of predecessors.
Like the Michigan State game that preceded it, if this had been Krzyzewski’s last game, it was a contest worthy of the moment. But it was not the end. There may yet be more firsts out there. Duke is halfway home. Arkansas awaits.
