Good article from espn.com on how Duke looked themselves in the mirror and saw a fairly soft team and couldn't win in a grind-it-out type game. What did they do? They changed their mindsets and practice habits:These Blue Devils like to play defense. And they're really pretty good at it. Good enough, in fact, to just turn the tide on Purdue, the stingiest team in a Big Ten that prefers to score points only on the solstice.
Duke out-down-and-dirtied the Boilermakers, 70-57, to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2004 -- a hiccup by most programs standards, but a Dust Bowl Era drought by Duke's.
Think that's a coincidence?
"Probably not,'' Brian Zoubek admitted. "The reason we're here is our defense.''
The most maligned top seed in this NCAA tournament now remains as just one of two No. 1s to survive to the Elite Eight. Maybe along the way they've even silenced a few critics.
"We're a lot better,'' Jon Scheyer said. "In the past a lot of people said, and it was accurate, that we would have a hard time because we were smaller and too much of an offensive team to win games, especially games like this one. This team now has a lot more toughness.''
The toughness comes in all forms: not blinking when they can't score, outrebounding Purdue by 21, and yes, setting screens that serve as brick walls, a la Zoubek on Chris Kramer.
But Duke has been clamping down on everybody this season. This isn't a flash in the pan cooked up for the tournament; this is a decisive change in scheme.
Mike Krzyzewski has been preaching defense at his teams forever. It just hasn't always sunk in. It didn't always have to. Duke long has been able to mask its defensive inefficiencies with its offensive prowess. This group looked in the mirror and saw a team that could score but wasn't necessarily prolific.
They looked around the locker room and instead of a sea of guards discovered a forest of big men.
More they saw the memories of their greatest achievements stretching further and further in the rearview mirror.
"Why the change? A lot of tough experiences, a lot of losses,'' Zoubek said. "Losses because of our defense. We knew we weren't tough enough on defense and we had to start doing all the little things, the dirty work to get better.''
So the Devils turned practices into rugby scrums. They put on their knee pads, thigh pads, mouth guards and dug deep for the tenacity they knew they were lacking. They played team defense and worked separately, big men at one end of the floor, guards at the other. Regardless of the setup, the attitude was the same -- 100 percent all in.
"We wouldn't have won this game last year, I don't think,'' Singler said. "Now, this is just who we are. We're a more complete team. We can find a way to win.''
