Duke's title hopes rely on the team playing for each other – not Mike Krzyzewski

Syracuse supporters were ecstatic, and so it appeared that now the whole of Barclays Center was suddenly bearing in along with Duke. With the enormous pressure that influenced Mentor K's previous game of the season, Mike Krzyzewski and his teammates had to come up with an explanation on Saturday because of what should not have represented as an unexpected defeat to North Carolina.

What was Duke's justification soon afterward in Brooklyn?
It's not Cameron Indoor Stadium, but also the rest of the country wasn't paying attention to this ACC Tournament semifinal. Also, the Orange were still not playing the rival Tar Heels, and Jim Boeheim wasn't fielding anything more than a.500 team without its two most important players ailing center. Jesse Edwards and his banished child Buddy.


1. Under certain circumstances, a defeat would've been disastrous.

2. Duke would never have gone further into the NCAA Tournament in the coming weeks, thinking that this would send Krzyzewski out on a high note, even if UCLA accomplished what John Wooden did with that last national championship.

3. As a result, the Blue Devils dug deep and brought order to their world, which has rocked.

In the end, Duke didn't require any. Roach's 19 points off the bench dominated the tournament, and indeed the Blue Devils performed almost enough defense in the closing to hold off the Fight Boeheim's, Jim, and Jimmy, who have been enraged because Buddy's banishment for hitting a Florida State player in the stomach might not have been enforced in that tournament.

Boeheim's longtime buddy, Mike Krzyzewski, really does have an opportunity to make the next campaign its best. It's not a big chance, but it's an opportunity nevertheless. And then, in the final moments of Thursday, when almost every Blue Devil unleashed a shot, mostly in knockout over cooperative or collaborative, it was possible to predict whether Duke would consign a great defeat against North Carolina to history or obscurity by the end of the tournament.

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