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WASHINGTON, D.C. — These sorts of locker rooms all the time really feel the identical.
Quiet. Empty. Managers silently shuffling by, wheeling baggage of soiled laundry. Gamers zipping their hoodies all the best way up, headphones on. Heads bowed, everybody in a rush to flee this place — this sense — as shortly as humanly potential.
Which is strictly what Duke did Thursday. Nicely: the fleeing half, no less than. The Blue Devils misplaced 74-69 to NC State of their solely ACC event recreation — this system’s first ACC quarterfinal loss since 2016 — and have been gone from Capital One Enviornment not even 4 hours after tipoff.
However this sense?
If solely Duke may depart it behind in D.C. as simply because it did empty water bottles.
As a result of the factor is, Duke didn’t simply lose a basketball recreation on Thursday. It no-showed … once more. It acquired out-toughed … once more. “They only out-competed us, actually,” stated sophomore ahead Mark Mitchell. “I can’t put a finger on it.”
Jon Scheyer’s workforce, lower than per week after shedding at house on Senior Night time to its most-hated rival — which additionally, not for nothing, value Duke a share of the ACC regular-season title — missed 9 of its first 10 pictures. After trailing by three at halftime, it returned out of the locker room … and allowed NC State, enjoying its third recreation in as many days, to rattle off a 6-0 run to start out the second half. Scheyer didn’t even let three minutes elapse earlier than known as timeout, clearly sad together with his workforce’s effort.
“Look, I can undergo the main points of the sport. I believe for us, although, it’s in regards to the aggressive fireplace that you must have within the postseason,” Scheyer stated. “We didn’t have that collectively total.”
How is that potential?
How, this late within the season — with 4 returning starters again, all of whom solely returned for an additional postseason strive — is that also a problem?
How, after Duke acquired punked within the second spherical by Tennessee in final season’s NCAA Event, is straightforward want-to a recurring downside?
“Simply talking again to Tennessee final yr, they needed it greater than us,” sophomore ahead Kyle Filipowski stated within the locker room, unprompted. “We will’t expect to win. We will’t be entitled … We’ve acquired to need it greater than the opposite workforce, as a result of if not? Then it’s going to be the identical scenario because the second spherical final yr. As tonight.”
It’s a troubling development, one bigger than Xs and Os or capturing percentages. “All our losses have a typical theme,” Mitchell stated. “I don’t know if it’s simply the Carolina recreation. You return to Arizona, you may go to Arkansas, you may go to Pitt at house. Similar story.” Regardless of how properly Duke defends a ball display, irrespective of if Filipowski goes off for 28 factors like he did on Thursday, that may be a deadly flaw.
It’s a roster development concern, actually. After Dereck Lively II, final season’s beginning heart, left to turn out to be a lottery decide by the Dallas Mavericks, Duke flirted with a number of substitute massive males within the switch portal final summer season — however in the end opted to not signal one. As a substitute, Scheyer has principally performed the 7-foot Filipowski at heart, alongside a smaller three-guard lineup. The outcomes have been combined. Some dizzying five-out offense, sure, but in addition lackluster rim safety. It’s no coincidence that Duke is 0-5 this season when permitting 80 or extra factors.
That’s a manageable concern by comparability, although. One Scheyer, together with his basketball acumen, can moderately attempt to game-plan round.
However if you’re nonetheless teaching want, two weeks into this month?
You’ve acquired greater issues.
A lot greater issues.
NC State took the struggle to Duke within the ACC event. (Geoff Burke / USA Immediately)
Freshman Jared McCain was requested how a workforce adjustments its mentality this late within the season, now 32 video games deep:
“I believe simply humility. Like, simply having the ability to convey your ego down,” he stated. “Take what we’re getting taught — what we’re getting yelled at possibly for — and truly embrace it, and use it for our motivation for these subsequent video games. Our subsequent recreation might be our final, so we’ve got to play like our season’s on the road. As a result of it’s.”
A follow-up, then: Over the past week or so, coming into its most important stretch of the season, has Duke had the suitable humility?
“I imply, for the previous week, most likely not,” McCain stated. “Many of the season we’ve had it, particularly as a result of we’ve got a lot expertise on this workforce. It’s virtually exhausting to eradicate egos as a result of we’re actually good. All people’s actually good on this workforce. However for this previous week — particularly from the Carolina (loss) to this recreation — we weren’t capable of translate what we discovered to this recreation. So the humility wasn’t there this recreation.”
Added Mitchell, from two lockers down: “I believe that’s positively a bit true. I don’t assume any of us are egocentric guys or assume we’re too good for something, however I believe at occasions it’s human nature. We do this. We take issues without any consideration, and I believe it reveals up in sure moments, at sure occasions. And all we are able to do is replicate on that and get it out of our system for subsequent week.”
Scheyer likes to speak typically — to his gamers, to reporters — about controlling what you may management. The work somebody places into their soar shot, as an illustration. A participant’s willingness to dive on a free ball.
“I don’t really feel we dealt with what we may management tonight. Little doubt in my thoughts,” Scheyer stated. “If we would like that feeling per week from now the place you lose, otherwise you exit the event, the place you didn’t management what you can management, that may be an actual disgrace.”
Among the downside, clearly, lies with the gamers. He can’t management their power, or how exhausting they struggle via screens, or how prepared they’re to throw elbows for a contested rebound.
However a number of the accountability, too, has to lie with Scheyer. The 36-year-old has made a concerted effort since succeeding Mike Krzyzewski — the winningest coach in males’s faculty hoops historical past, who nonetheless maintains an workplace on the ground about Scheyer’s — to point out that he’s his personal man. An unflinching competitor — and one, as he’s displayed via two seasons, who’s prepared to experiment stylistically greater than his predecessor.
However — after all there’s a however — the time definitely appears to have come for Scheyer to lean into one explicit Krzyzewski-ism: bringing the hammer down. Krzyzewski’s grandson, Michael Savarino, advised reporters earlier than Krzyzewski’s final season that he discovered each curse phrase he knew from his grandpa. Krzyzewski was — is — identified for his fiery flare-ups, for his dramatic responses to lackluster effort. Scroll via outdated episodes of J.J. Redick’s podcast, and there are ample examples. Kicking gamers out of their house locker room. Not permitting them to put on Duke attire. Making them run, and run, and run. The checklist goes on.
This isn’t to recommend that Scheyer want copy any of these particularly. However with this group, which clearly hasn’t grasped the lose-and-go-home mentality it’s about to face within the NCAA Event?
Yeah. It’s most likely previous time to get powerful.
Loads of groups have misplaced of their convention tournaments and gone on to win the nationwide title. Heck, Connecticut did final yr.
However nobody was questioning UConn’s mentality on the eve of March Insanity.
And now, days earlier than Choice Sunday, that’s a professional concern for Duke. Possibly it has been all alongside.
“It will be an actual downside in the event you didn’t consider within the workforce. I believe it begins there,” Scheyer stated. “Do you consider within the group you could have? Do you consider within the workforce? And the reply is emphatically, one hundred pc sure.”
We’re about to learn the way well-placed that perception is.
(Photograph of Kyle Filipowski and Ryan Young: Geoff Burke / USA Immediately)
