Heady Play Brings Duke Heady Days at No. 1 in Basketball

The Duke Blue Devils are the college basketball team with everything: talent, intelligence and sensitivity, too, and it is impossible in their presence to feel anything but a blundering inferiority. They never get unseemly blemishes, they always graduate and their hair surely must be cut by the same barber. “I hope it’s not mine,” Coach Mike Krzyzewski said, but it is, judging by their same neat trims with one lank piece on top that looks sort of like a veal chop.

It would be nice to occasionally hear something bad about them, such as they aren’t really getting along, or they don’t wash their necks, but that never will happen. Duke has become the model, the place where great ideas and great basketball are not mutually exclusive, and moreover the Blue Devils are ranked No. 1 in the country and carrying it with apparent ease.

“The attitude is, ‘Why not us?’ ” forward John Smith said. Why not is right, with a simple punishing man-on-man defense and a disciplined motion offense, but most importantly a great cliquish affection fostered by Krzyzewski, who has interrelating dinners at his house and says earnest things like, “Hey, let’s talk.”

More and more it has come to the attention of the nation’s youth that if they possess some dexterity combined with an alert mind, Duke is the choicest, most prestigious place to be right now. The Blue Devils have been to the NCAA Final Four in two of the last three years, made five straight tournament appearances, and of the 42 scholarship players who have passed through the campus portals since 1975, every last one has gotten a degree.

The 12-0 team that goes into Saturday’s game against Maryland at Cole Field House is made up of seven former McDonald’s prep all-Americas, and four former national-honor-society members. So maybe Duke players look and act impeccably alike, and sometimes make their rich shade of school-color blue seem drab. But their current senior class is one of the most successful in school history and is seeking the national championship that has just barely eluded their recent predecessors.

Point guard Quin Snyder is their morale leader, third all time for the Blue Devils in career assists while dropping words like “cognizant” with aplomb. All-America Danny Ferry is a doe-eyed, heavy-hipped diplomat who leads the team in scoring with 22.8 points a game, but also is second in assists with 62. Smith is a selfless sixth man who averages 9.8 points, while dealing with the taxing double major of economics and political science.

“People don’t necessarily get intimidated by Duke,” Snyder said. “Coach says if we intimidate, we do it by togetherness. There’s not a lot to look at on the outside maybe, but there are lot of subtle things inside.”

Those subtleties primarily consist of chemistry, and a role-playing ability that gives the Blue Devils something beyond mere depth. That four starters average in double figures is perhaps one of their less important attributes; it is merely a factor to be combined with a chameleon-like 13-man roster that includes six players who are 6-foot-9 or better. At their core are the seniors Ferry, Snyder and Smith, who have amassed a record of 101-17 in their three-plus years, second best in victories of any Duke class ever.

How Duke continues to develop this season and whether it holds the top ranking depends in large part on how well the Blue Devils replace Billy King, who was the defensive player of the year, and Kevin Strickland, who scored 16.5 points a game. Thus far they have taken up the slack with a unified effort.

Ferry has been a simply devastating scorer: against Miami on Dec. 10 he scored an ACC-record 58 points, and followed that with 33 against Wake Forest. But his assists are as dangerous as his points, with seven against the Hurricanes to go with six rebounds. He barely missed a triple-double against Wake Forest, with nine assists and nine rebounds, and he also leads the team in charges taken.

Christian Laettner has been a 6-foot-10 ingenue sensation, contributing 8.9 points a game. He twice has been named ACC rookie of the week. Center Alaa Abdelnaby adds 12.1 points, while the 6-5 Robert Brickey, who jumped at center last season, is now a perimeter player, averaging 10.6 points and five rebounds. Defensively, they are their usual hectoring selves: Over the last two years they have forced an average of 19.7 turnovers a game, and opponents have shot a collective 46 percent.

“They’ve got everything going right now,” said Virginia assistant coach Dave Odom. “They operate on some kind of wavelength.”

The wavelength emanates from Krzyzewski, who has developed a careful method for blending his teams. He feels that travel builds closeness and confidence in each other, so they took a three-week tour of Spain and Greece last summer, playing Olympic-bound national squads, including Yugoslavia and the gold-medal Soviet team. He has the Blue Devils over for regular dinners, using the NFL playoffs or idle weekends as excuses. “You communicate,” he said. “There are no airs about anyone here. We talk. It’s amazing how much that helps. You have fun with them, you get on them, and they’re not afraid to say what’s on their mind.”

One quality the Blue Devils regularly display, and which seems to be present in this version, is an unshakable confidence. It is usual to see opponents slowly drained of their composure as Duke is able to find the big play when needed, usually from Ferry.

That, too, comes from Krzyzewski, who is now recognized as a superior floor coach, with a knack for the proper timeout and a sure foresight that comes from preparation. For instance, Krzyzewski felt the Blue Devils had done poorly in the NCAA on occasions when they traveled far from home. So he scheduled a game in the state of Washington last week, with the idea that the Blue Devils may well be in Seattle for the Final Four.

“I can’t remember a situation on the court I felt we weren’t prepared for,” Smith said. “I can always look over at the bench and get a good answer.”

Krzyzewski has a sense of how to regulate their emotions, perhaps learned in his first three difficult seasons in Durham, when he was 17-10, 10-17 and 11-17, respectively. When the combination of academic pressure and rankings becomes too much for the Blue Devils, he will make a timely, apt joke, or he will spell a player during practice and join scrimmages himself. Or assistant coach Pete Gaudet will leave a caricature on the drawing board, of Smith’s body but Snyder’s face. “Pretty soon you see you were being silly, taking it too seriously,” Smith said. “He reminds you it’s a game and it’s supposed to be fun.”

That can be difficult, considering the pressure to graduate and not spoil their 100 percent record. And they are not without problems in accomplishing it. “It’s become a driving force,” Smith said. Under Duke’s guidelines, failure of two courses in a semester results in suspension from the university for two semesters. Junior guard Phil Henderson missed most of his freshman season when he could not keep up and was academically dismissed. But he regained his eligibility as a sophomore and has had no problems since, balancing his economics major with an average of 10.5 points per game. Sophomore guard Joe Cook is currently under academic suspension.

He is being pushed by his teammates to regain good standing in the classroom, primarily by Ferry, who sees it as his duty as a team captain. “A lot of people don’t know that when Joe got in trouble academically, Danny was the one who would take him to the library, and spend a lot of time talking to him,” Smith said.

According to Ferry, the delicate balance is not so complicated as it appears. Peer pressure among Duke students with average SAT scores of 1,305 out of a possible 1,600 is felt by the players, who do not live in athletic dormitories, mingling freely on campus. “I don’t think it’s real tough,” Ferry said, “Because the standards have been set and you just follow them.”