The situation is familiar in countless parts of our culture. The novelist produces a great first book, then faces the pressure of writing a second. The rock group produces a great first album, then faces the pressure of putting out a second. The playwright produces a great first act, then faces the pressure of authoring the second.
Now come Duke and Kansas, set to face each other in Monday`s title game after producing a pair of stunning upsets just 48 hours earlier. They hugged and danced, jumped and pirouetted, that is how the Blue Devils and the Jayhawks celebrated their surprising wins. But now-so suddenly-they must produce again.
”It was a big game,” Kansas coach Roy Williams said of his team`s Saturday win over North Carolina. ”But it can`t (be) our biggest game. You can`t have your biggest game two games in a row. We`ve talked a lot about great opportunities coming to those who take advantage of small opportunities. Last night was another of those small opportunities, and now we have the great opportunity we`ve been hoping for.”
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”My main concern is how we focus on the Kansas game, and put the Vegas game behind us,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. ”But we`ve gone through periods where we learned if we don`t invest physically and emotionally, we`re an ordinary basketball team. If we don`t understand that, we`re fools, and I think these guys are too intelligent for that.”
Monday night was to have been the date for Vegas` coronation, the evening when it would win its second straight title and take its place in the history book alongside other legendary teams. But now the night has been transformed into a curiosity piece.
Less than three years ago, at the 1988 pre-season NIT, Williams was introduced at a banquet as ”Ray.” Over the last three years, at each of these Final Fours, Duke has appeared, and then disappeared without a title. Just three weeks ago, at the Big 8 tourney, Kansas suffered a second-round loss to Nebraska. Just three weeks ago, at the ACC tourney, Duke suffered a humiliating title-game loss to North Carolina.
But here they are, the last two teams standing, one as faceless as its home state`s plains, the other saddled with its string of springtime failures. Terry Brown and Adonis Jordan, Mark Randall and Mike Maddox and Alonzo Jamison-those are the names of Kansas` unheralded starters. Mike Krzyzewski went out to play a round of golf, and quit after 14 holes since he didn`t want to play the final four.
”If we`re the underdog every time, I love it,” is how Randall responds to his group`s anonymity. ”We enjoy playing the role of spoiler.”
”I`m proud of what we`ve accomplished,” is how Duke forward Greg Koubek responds to his team`s Final Four failures.
His team, this Duke team, now has chance to finally present its coach with the final accomplishment, an opportunity to grab the one prize none of its predecessors could collect. Three years ago, in the semifinals, it was stopped by a streaking Jayhawk team led by the wondrous Danny Manning. Two years ago, again in the semifinals, it was stopped by a Seton Hall team as rugged as a group of stevedores. Last year, in the finals, it was stopped by a Vegas that performed flawlessly and at an exalted level.
Now it faces another streaking Jayhawk team, but one without a star of Manning`s magnitude. This one, instead, is an ultimate collection of disparate talents, a bunch of those ever-popular role players willing to defend ardently and to exhaust themselves operating Williams` passing-and-screening offensive scheme.
”We can be ugly at times, but I haven`t been around a group as competitive as this one,” is how Williams` describes them.
But, if they needed to, Duke proved its own competitiveness on Saturday night, proved it against an imposing team and in a game as taut as the finest of fiction`s thrillers. In it Bobby Hurley, who looks like he should live on Sesame Street, reminded all that he grew up on the tough streets of Jersey City.
In it Christian Laettner, handsome enough to be a model, proved that sinew comes wrapped in all kinds of packages. Grant Hill showed he was no mere freshman in it, and Thomas Hill and Brian Davis exhibited an athleticism that often left the athletic Rebs flat-footed.
Kansas, though it has some athletes, cannot equal Duke here, nor does it have the size to effectively match up with Laettner. Its defense can be withering, but the Blue Devils proved just as certainly that it can handle pressure in their upset of Vegas.
For this space, that all says their day has finally come. To this space, it looks like Duke by seven.