NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : Duke’s Abdelnaby Is Driven : Blue Devils: After three inconsistent seasons and some off-court difficulties, the center has finally established himself heading into his biggest games.

The years peel past, burning rubber for Alaa Abdelnaby, who was born in Egypt and--until his senior season at Duke--always seemed to keep his mighty basketball talent under wraps, as silent and mysterious as the Sphinx.

Sometimes, Abdelnaby was as wondrous, too. In his best game as a junior, he made 11 of 14 shots and scored 24 points at North Carolina State when Danny Ferry, Mr. Blue Devil himself, couldn’t play because of back spasms.

Other times, Abdelnaby wasn’t so wondrous. He scored only 12 points in the two games that followed his big game against the Wolfpack.

Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, who kept waiting for Abdelnaby to take the lead, told his 6-10 240-pound center before the season that he shouldn’t expect to play merely because he was a senior.

“He wasn’t bad, he just wasn’t as good as he should be,” Krzyzewski said. “We never give up on a kid until it’s all over. Usually the kids in our program have come around.”

And now, just in time for the Final Four, Abdelnaby is here. After averaging 14.9 points and 6.7 rebounds during the season, he has been even better in the NCAA tournament.

Abdelnaby’s tournament averages of 22.5 points and 10 rebounds have not only helped put Duke at the brink of an NCAA title in its eighth appearance in the Final Four, but have also caught the attention of professional scouts.

“He’s opened a lot of people’s eyes,” Laker General Manager Jerry West said. “His improvement up to this point in time has really been remarkable.”

Abdelnaby said he had something to prove after a three-year period at Duke remarkable only for a series of widely publicized off-court problems.

First, it appears that Abdelnaby and cars do not mix. He once drove a car into a tree and was charged with reckless driving on campus.

He recounted the incident.

“Going fast? Well, it was midnight, it had rained all day and it was 30 degrees. I’m just telling you the facts.

“I was going fast, absolutely, but I don’t think I was going at a crazy speed. Maybe I was, I don’t know.”

Another time, Abdelnaby was caught speeding, passing on the shoulder of a North Carolina interstate. When he made his court appearance, several attorneys gathered around for his autograph.

Out from behind the wheel, Abdelnaby had other problems. He bounced a $16.44 check at a Durham grocery store and was suspended for two games for not going to class. Unwanted notoriety found Abdelnaby before he found himself.

“John Feinstein wrote a book (“The Season Inside”) and he called me a flake,” Abdelnaby said. “I’m glad I can laugh about it now. That’s the kind of thing that people thought of when my name was mentioned.

“People said, ‘Why can he do it one game and not do it the other game? He must be a weirdo.’ Then somebody picks up the paper and says, ‘Oh, my God, reckless driving, that’s his problem. He’s irresponsible, you know, a flake.’

“I think it all affected the way I played and how I handled myself off the court. I was paranoid, to be quite honest. If I went out in public, I always thought, ‘I wonder what these people think of me?’ It just wasn’t a good time to be me.”

Of course, now is a great time to be Abdelnaby. He had 14 points, seven rebounds and two blocks against UCLA, then came back with 27 points, a career-high 14 rebounds and two blocks against Connecticut.

Abdelnaby appears to be peaking at the right time, even if took him three years to get there. This is not what many expected of the former Mr. Basketball in New Jersey, who averaged 27 points, 18 rebounds and nine blocks a game as a senior.

Abdelnaby arrived in Bloomfield, N.J., at 2 1/2 when his engineer father and computer analyst mother left Egypt to look for better jobs. Later, the Abdelnabys became U.S. citizens.

Playing for Coach Paul Palek at Bloomfield High School, Abdelnaby yearned for a chance at the NBA. Palek, now assistant principal at Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey, thought the sky was the limit for Abdelnaby.

“His basketball ability was God-given,” Palek said. “He had all the hand-eye coordination he needed to be successful at the high school level. His post moves were superior.”

But when Abdelnaby arrived on the Duke campus in Durham, N.C., he was asked to do more. What had once been so easy for Abdelnaby was now much more difficult.

“At that level, everything is relative,” Palek said. “You have to make a second and third effort to become a great player. In high school, you can go at half-speed and still be successful.”

Krzyzewski, who put Abdelnaby on a weight-training program before this season, had doubts about his pupil’s resolve.

“I think he didn’t realize the commitment to being good at this level of college basketball,” Krzyzewski said. “Whether he was sensitive or whatever, I don’t think he was willing to make that type of commitment. He didn’t know how to do it. He never had to do it in high school because he was better than people.”

Still, the Blue Devils, who were ranked No. 15 in the final Associated Press poll, probably would not have gotten this far without Abdelnaby. He had a season-high 32 points against North Carolina State, made all 10 of his shots against Notre Dame, made 77.8% of his free throws and blocked 45 shots.

The end of Abdelnaby’s college career, once regarded as nothing major at Duke, is now much lamented. He wishes he could get a couple of those early years back.

“My first three years were definitely below my expectations,” Abdelnaby said. “They were below everybody else’s, too.

“You go through high school, you’re successful in high school, you’re touted and people start telling you, hey, you can do this and that. And then when you get to college, you start believing that stuff.

“You want it to happen, and when it doesn’t happen, you get a little disheartened, sure. You lose a little confidence.”

Abdelnaby is taking his role as a senior leader--along with Robert Brickey and Phil Henderson--as serious stuff. When freshman point guard Bobby Hurley vomited because of the tension before the East Regional final against Connecticut, Abdelnaby tried to loosen up Hurley.

After offering Hurley a breath mint, Abdelnaby told him he was glad that Hurley’s stomach was in disarray because that meant that Hurley cared about the game.

“He laughed and that’s what I wanted,” said Abdelnaby, who provoked an entirely different reaction from Krzyzewski at a pregame press conference.

Abdelnaby related what former Duke player Johnny Dawkins had told him about maturity: The first two years, you work on your body and the next two years, you work on your mind.

Sitting next to Abdelnaby, Krzyzewski seemed stunned by what he was hearing.

“God, that’s great,” Krzyzewski said, slowly breaking into a smile. “It’s nice to hear that from a senior.”

It’s all part of growing up, Krzyzewski said, and although Abdelnaby’s passage was slightly turbulent, when you’re talking about a person who is 6-10, there’s a lot of growing up to do.

Krzyzewski’s philosophy is to allow his players to drive toward independence following their own signs.

“I thought that if he made a mistake or doesn’t know how to balance his checkbook, he should understand that people who are in the public eye get criticized for that,” Krzyzewski said. “They get bad press for that.

“You just can’t get all the good things. Like when you hit a shot and then you expect, ‘Well, I want my name in the paper.’ Well, if your name is in the paper for that and you bounce a check or you are caught speeding, that doesn’t make you a bad person, but your name is going to be in the paper. And not on page 85, either.

“That’s understanding responsibility. Alaa is maturing. I really think he is taking care of things much better. You got to come through.”

And so Abdelnaby has come through. With 6-11 forward Christian Laettner playing on his hip, the Blue Devils are flashing the strongest inside game of any team at the Final Four.

Right now, though, his prior life at Duke is over, and what matters most to Abdelnaby is the present. He hopes that the pro scouts are watching again and that the NBA career he thinks about almost every day will be a reality. And just maybe those pro scouts will forgive him his youth.

“I think I’ve had a good year, and I wanted to prove to some people that Alaa is a good player,” Abdelnaby said. “I wanted to prove it to myself.

“My experience at Duke I’ll liken to a person who is poor and all of a sudden runs into some money,” he said. “When the person gets that money, he appreciates it a lot more. I appreciate these good times now.

“People remember the last image, the last impression you make on them. I want people to remember Alaa as part of a winning team.”