The notion is so 20th century. No, it is more than that. The outlook coach Mike Krzyzewski has successfully communicated to his basketball players at Duke comes direct from the 1950s. His suggestion of how they should perceive themselves and each other is a working-class vision in an Internet-stock world.
“It’s kind of like an assembly line,” Krzyzewski said of his Blue Devils earlier this week. “You better do your job, because if you don’t, when it gets to me, there’s a problem. We’re like an assembly-line team.”
Duke’s collective identity, reinforced by the willingness of its leaders to blend with a group of talented freshmen, has created a startling success. The Blue Devils have understood the necessity of such an approach for more than 10 months, since the afternoon last May when it became clear that Corey Maggette would leave Duke after his freshman season and become the third underclassman to depart.
Chris Carrawell, who had come to Cameron Indoor Stadium to shoot, made an observation about the team that was expected to win the 1999 championship game until the final moments of that narrow loss to Connecticut.
“That was the last time that group of guys was going to be together,” Carrawell said that day. “But at least a couple of them were coming back. I didn’t think the whole group was going to go. Right now we can’t even play pickup games. We’ve only got three players.”
Four Blue Devils were taken in the first 14 picks of the NBA draft and only one was a senior. Now even Duke was forced to react to early exits.
Krzyzewski’s response was an immediate emphasis on the influence of remaining leaders Carrawell, Shane Battier and Nate James.
The result has been Duke’s most unexpected success in 10 years, since the team that had lost a national player of the year (Danny Ferry) and started a freshman point guard (Bobby Hurley) won 29 games and played for a NCAA championship.
This Duke team will take a 29-4 record into Friday night’s East Regional semifinal against Florida in Syracuse, N.Y. Krzyzewski’s teams have won 50 NCAA tournament games, second only to Dean Smith’s 65. Carrawell and Battier, role players until this season, have been nominated for national player-of-the-year awards. Carrawell became the Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year.
“We’re getting paid with compliments like somebody who’s not an assembly-line guy,” Krzyzewski said. “But we are.”
The leaders are the ones whose dirty work allowed last year’s stars to move on and collect NBA paychecks.
The revised roles of Carrawell, Battier and James have received more attention than they did last year, but the mindset has been consistent.
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“We realized that we’re not good enough individually to carry the team and win a game by ourselves as we did in the past,” Battier said.
But he added, “I’m not saying we’re not as good as last year.”
Duke has succeeded with a diversity of leadership. James, who has earned standing ovations from fans for his subtle contributions, said the strength of the leadership comes from its different voices.
“If you have one leader,” James said, “you have one guy always doing the talking, getting on the guys, getting them riled up. That can get a little old. You get tired of hearing one guy talk. …
“Shane, he’s a leader,” James added. “He’s kind of always talking. Chris Carrawell, I think sometimes he does a little less talking. He’s going to show you– follow my lead. I’m a combination of the two.”
Battier, once known strictly for his defense and willingness to take charges, has grown into a complete player averaging 17.4 points, 5.5 rebounds and a free-throw percentage of .819.
“If Chris is the ice, I’m the fire,” Battier said. “Nate is a pretty good mix of both. He can be very fiery at times and he can be philosophical at times. He’s the perfect liaison between me and Chris.”
On Sunday, when the second-round struggle against Kansas reached its decisive moments, each leader played a significant role.
Battier relied on his resourcefulness at the offensive end.
“Good players have to find ways to score,” Battier said. “And I didn’t resign myself to being a jump shooter. So I took it upon myself to find different ways to score, to find different ways to influence the game.”
He posted up his opponents. He moved more aggressively toward the basket. Battier scored 10 of 12 Duke points in a second-half stretch that followed a potentially costly segment of six turnovers in eight possessions.
James, who thoughtfully picks his spots before he speaks, raised his voice in a huddle in the final minutes. Battier remembered the message: “He said, `We’ve been in this situation before. Let’s go out there and do the things we’ve done over and over and over.'”
And Carrawell made one of the game’s decisive plays, preventing Kansas’ Jeff Boschee from taking a three-point shot in the final 10 seconds, then racing 20 feet through traffic to the other side of the basket to collect the rebound and call a timeout with 3.8 seconds left.
Soon after in the dressing room, Krzyzewski saw a rare display of emotion.
“It was really one of the great, happy moments that I have seen in coaching,” he said.
“It was very genuine. Sometimes because of the stature of our program and the high expectations you don’t get that genuine happiness, the sharing of it. It was great. It was like you were in `Hoosiers’ or something.”