Anaheim, Calif. ? When the Duke Blue Devils begin making travel plans for the NCAA Tournament every season, they almost never need to take their road uniforms on the road.
The higher seed gets to wear their home jerseys during March Madness, and Duke has worn white for an amazing 27 straight tournament games.
But tonight, for the first time since the 1994 NCAA championship game, the Blue Devils will be the lower seed when they take on Kansas in the Sweet 16.
It’s a new role for the Blue Devils, but it’s a role they relish.
“It’s definitely different for us,” Duke junior Chris Duhon said. “But it’s something that we take as a challenge, and it just puts a bigger chip on our shoulders to just go out and show everybody that we can play.”
The difference between the seeds (Duke is No. 3 in the West; Kansas is No. 2) isn’t anything dramatic, nor is the difference between the teams.
The Blue Devils were ranked No. 1 in the nation earlier in the season, and the Jayhawks started the season ranked No. 2. Duke (26-6) and Kansas (27-7) carry nearly identical records. Duke won the ACC Tournament, while the Jayhawks won the Big 12 regular-season title.
It all adds up to arguably the marquee matchup of the tournament to date, but it’s easy to forget that both teams actually had a hard time getting here. Both appear to be playing their best basketball of the season, but both have fallen far short of their best at various points during the season.
“It’s been a difficult year in a lot of ways,” Kansas coach Roy Williams said. “Last year we were 16-0 in the league and won 33 games, and each game we lost we had a chance to bounce back pretty quickly so we didn’t have to suffer the loss for a long time.
“This year we start out 3-3 — we’re 3-3 at one time and going to Tulsa at Tulsa, and they are 17th in the country.
“We’re happy to be here to say the least.”
Kansas started the season with a pair of easy victories against overmatched teams in the Preseason NIT, but then the Jayhawks looked overmatched at Madison Square Garden, falling in the semifinals to North Carolina and to Florida in the consolation round. A loss to Oregon soon followed, and the Jayhawks went from No. 2 in the nation to nearly out of the poll.
Kansas got back on track and was rolling to a sixth straight victory, a 54-point pounding of Missouri-Kansas City, only to have versatile forward Wayne Simien go down to a shoulder injury.
Simien missed 11 games with the injury, but the Jayhawks barely missed a beat, going 9-2. Simien’s return seemed to seal the Jayhawks’ return to elite status, but after four games, he re-injured the shoulder and was lost for the season.
Still, the Jayhawks kept winning.
“There’s been some adversity, but the guys have really done a nice job of getting by that stuff,” Williams said. “And now here we are in the Sweet 16.”
The dynamics of Duke’s season have been well-documented. The early departures of Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer and Mike Dunleavy left Duke to lean on its highly touted freshman class, but those freshmen played like freshmen — especially on the road.
Duke once stood as the nation’s lone unbeaten, but after starting 12-0, the Blue Devils followed that up with a 4-4 stretch. They showed signs of getting things together again, then ended the regular season with losses to St. John’s and UNC.
But with some extra practice time before the ACC Tournament, Duke went with a four-perimeter-player lineup and a renewed focus on defense. The Blue Devils haven’t lost since, and Duhon especially has looked like a different — a better — player since.
“It started with the second half of our first game in the ACC Tournament, and each game we’ve been just building and building and getting better and better,” Duhon said. “Guys are starting to feel more comfortable with their roles and they understand the way we want to play defense.
“Although it took 30-something games for me to start to feel more comfortable with my role, I’m now at the highest level of confidence. I feel like I can do practically anything, and hopefully I’ll continue to lead this team to even better things.”
Once the game tips off, the focus will be on the floor at the Arrowhead Pond. But the day before the game, both sides took time to reminisce about the Duke-Kansas collisions of the past.
Three years ago, in the second round of the tournament, Duke survived a fierce game that included a shouting match between Williams and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. Krzyzewski reflected Wednesday on the intensity of that game; Kansas senior Kirk Hinrich reflected on the heartbreak.
Thanks to Williams’ ties to the Tar Heel state, the memories of past match-ups pre-date Hinrich. Duke ruined Williams’ first trip to the Final Four as a head coach in 1991, and Williams first season on the sidelines produced a 25-point loss at Duke in 1989.
Williams first got to know Duke growing up in Spruce Pine and then attending and later coaching at North Carolina.
“I do consider them to be a four-letter word: It is D-U-K-E, or is it D-O-O-K? It’s a four-letter word, though, I agree with that,” Williams said. “When you’re coaching at North Carolina and you’re coaching against Duke for 10 years, there’s a great amount of rivalry.
“The first college campus I was ever on was Duke. I don’t want everybody to start giggling too much, but my first activity on a college campus was on a square-dance team at the Duke Folk Festival. So I go way back with those guys.”
This time, for perhaps his first time at Kansas, Williams is actually favored to beat Duke.
But don’t let the black uniforms fool you; the Blue Devils don’t consider themselves considerable underdogs.
“We believe we have a shot at them,” Krzyzewski said. “It’s going to be a great game for college basketball.”
