March 19, 2015

the chronicle

BRIANNA SIRACUSE/THE CHRONICLE

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sportsstaff Editor: Nick Martin Editor-elect: Ryan Hoerger Blog Editor: Amrith Ramkumar Photo Editor: Brianna Siracuse Senior Editors: Daniel Carp, Bobby Colton, Matt Pun Associate Editors: Zac Elder, Delaney King, Vaishnavi Krishnan, Brian Mazur, Ryan Neu, Brian Pollack, Michael Schreiner, Ali Wells Staff Writers: Alex Albert, Ethan Andrzejewski, Cassie Calvert, Meredith Cash, Shane Cashin, Philip Coons, Jack Dolgin, Taseen Haque, Seth Johnson, Jackson Korman, Scott Lee, Sameer Pandhare, Carson Pate, Sammy Solomon, Jackson Steger, Sam Turken, Gen Vallado, Jacob Weiss Special thanks to: Towerview Photo Editor Elysia Su, entire Chronicle Photo Department, Editor-in-Chief Carleigh Stiehm, General Manager Chrissy Beck

THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015 | 3

What’s inside

4

INTENSE JUSTISE

7

MIDWEST REGION

10

Freshman Justise Winslow adds an edge Duke will need

Will Kentucky make it through the tournament 40-0?

EAST REGION

Who will emerge from a region with no clear favorite?

12

COOK IN THE NCAAs

Duke will need Quinn Cook to step up this tournament

6 8-9

THE HYPE IS REAL

This year’s young Duke squad is the real deal

SOUTH REGION

Who will challenge No. 1 seed Duke?

11

WEST REGION

13

CHANGING ROSTER

Will Frank the Tank and the Badgers roll through the West?

The Blue Devils have switched things up with their new roster

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Men’s Basketball

WINSLOW BRINGS INTENSITY FOR DUKE

Brianna Siracuse | Chronicle File Photo Blue Devil freshman Justise Winslow is third on the team with 12.3 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, as the Houston native has started every game of the season for Duke.

Amrith Ramkumar Beat Writer Jan. 31 was a special day for this Duke team.

The Blue Devils won at previously unbeaten Virginia in dramatic fashion, making their prospects of contending for ACC and national titles down the road much more realistic than they had been just days prior, when Duke found itself 4-3 in ACC play and dismissed Rasheed Sulaimon.

But perhaps more important than the mere fact that the Blue Devils won was the way they won, with four perimeter players surrounding ACC Player of the Year Jahlil Okafor and one in particular—Justise Winslow— breaking out in a big way.

Quinn Cook and Tyus Jones were the ones who made the iconic 3-pointers that clinched the game for Duke, but it Winslow who kept the Blue Devils afloat in the opening period, scoring 11 of his team’s 26 points and sparking Duke’s 10-0 edge in fastbreak points. It was

in this game that the Houston native started showing his knack for going coast-to-coast like few in the country can.

To put his performance in perspective, no team has been able to do what Winslow did almost singlehandedly against the Cavaliers that day in a half—put up 10 or more fastbreak points in the course of a 40-minute game.

“When I’m aggressive, it opens up a lot of things for my teammates and myself,” Winslow said before the Blue

Devils took on Syracuse Feb. 28. “I just try to stay aggressive and try to get in the paint and play physical, because that really will open up a lot of things for our shooters and for Jah.” Following the 6-foot-6, 225-pound forward’s first career double-double against Virginia, his game took off— and so did his team’s. After a rough six-game stretch in January that saw Duke’s only three regular season losses in which Winslow battled shoulder and rib injuries and averaged just 5.8 points and 3.0 rebounds per game, the former

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McDonald’s All-American looked like a new man and averaged 15.3 points and 8.9 rebounds per game in his next eight.

This stretch saw eight Blue Devil wins and three more Winslow doubledoubles as the freshman stepped up in crunch time as a matchup nightmare playing the four. In the eight-game span’s final contest—a 91-86 overtime win at Virginia Tech Feb. 25—Okafor carried Duke for much of the game, but it was Winslow’s seven-point, fourrebound effort in the extra session that made the difference.

He also sparked the Blue Devils’ second-half comeback with a few gamechanging, coast-to-coast drives that seem to give his team a new energy level in transition.

“The kid who turned the game around was Justise,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said after the game. “All of a sudden we were eight points down and everything was going in their direction. Justise just took the ball down the court a couple times. He just gave us a verve.”

Winslow has scored in double figures in Duke’s last 14 games. Despite concerns about how the explosive forward could match up defensively with opposing big men when the Blue Devils surround Okafor with Winslow and three other perimeter players, the swingman has been able to hold his own when he can avoid foul trouble.

But one Blue Devil who has seen a drastic reduction in production with the swingman’s ascent is junior captain

Jack White | The Chronicle In the Blue Devils’ ACC semifinal loss to Notre Dame, Winslow led Duke’s second-half charge with 11 points in the final 20 minutes.

Amile Jefferson. The power forward has played more than 23 minutes only in the two North Carolina games this year since Winslow’s late-season charge, scoring in double figures just once and failing to record more than six rebounds in any game.

If Jefferson can find a way to break out of his slump at the perfect time, Duke could get even more versatility at the perfect time and get back to playing more minutes with two true big men, which would make Winslow even more dangerous for teams that couldn’t game-plan for him playing the four.

“Amile hasn’t been playing as well. We

need to get him back up to playing like when he was starting early,” Krzyzewski said before the team’s regular season finale at North Carolina March 7. “One of the main things that Amile needs to be able to do is rebound. You’re not being guarded, so you have a chance to

THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015 | 5

get runs to the rim and be an amazing screener and to take pride on that.”

But even if Jefferson continues to take a backseat in the Big Dance, expect Winslow’s play to be a barometer of how well the Blue Devils fare. Although his team is coming off its first loss since Jan. 28 and the start of Winslow’s breakout stretch, the top-10 NBA prospect was a big reason Duke cut a 15-point halftime deficit to four and got back in the game in the semifinals of the ACC tournament. Winslow poured in all 11 of his points and seven rebounds in the second half to put his team in position to win and give Okafor much-needed support on the offensive end.

And after starting the game slowly like the rest of his teammates, it became clear that the swingman is as important as any of his teammates to Duke’s NCAA tournament prospects—not just because of his production, but because of his emotion and energy.

“In the second half, individually my play picked up, but I can’t let my teammates down in that way [early on],” Winslow said after the game.

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Column

Blue Devils live up to the hype

Emma Loewe | Chronicle File Photo Duke’s togetherness has columnist Daniel Carp feeling positive about the Blue Devils’ chances in the NCAA tournament.

I now understand why people tend to grow more cynical with age.

At the ripe old age of 22, I have watched freshman prodigies come and go during my four years at Duke. In 2011, a freshman named Austin Rivers joined the Blue Devils with an NBA pedigree and all the hype to match his talent. Two years later, Jabari Parker brought much of the same.

After plowing through the regular season and earning high NCAA tournament seeds, those two Duke teams combined for zero wins. So when the Blue Devils added their star-studded recruiting class of Jahlil Okafor, Tyus Jones, Justise Winslow and Grayson Allen—their most talented recruiting class in years, if not ever—I tried to maintain a healthy level of skepticism.

Thirty-three games later, this team has me convinced.

This year’s Duke team truly has what it takes to win it all, and that isn’t talent—it’s chemistry. Austin River’s Blue Devils and Jabari Parker’s Blue Devils did not have a level of cohesiveness in the same stratosphere as Duke’s 2014-15 squad. Their teams played as a collection of individuals, but this year’s group—unselfish freshmen stars flanked by a senior captain and gritty role players— embodies head coach Mike Krzyzewski’s timeless adage of five men playing as one.

Don’t even bother calling this Jahlil Okafor’s team or Quinn Cook’s team. This year’s team plays for each other and treats everyone as equals, and it shows when they take the floor. The extra pass always gets made.

Charges always get taken. A different player could beat you every night—when someone has a bad game, there’s always another player there to pick the team up. Players are just as satisfied coming off the bench as they are starting.

These are the intangibles that make the difference between good teams and great teams. The 2012-13 Blue Devils went to the Elite Eight on the backs of seniors Mason Plumlee, Seth Curry and Ryan Kelly. That team probably played with a similar level of synergy that this year’s squad displays and very realistically could have made the Final Four, but didn’t have the top-to-bottom talent of a championship team. Duke very likely hasn’t had a team with this year’s combination of talent and chemistry since its three best post-1992 teams, which went to Final Fours in 1998 and 2004 and won a national championship in 2001.

Every year that I’ve been here, I’ve listened to Krzyzewski stress how important it is that his teams play “together.” This is the first time during the past four

Daniel Carp

See Hype on Page 14

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Men’s Basketball

Duke needs Cook to show up in postseason

Graphic by Elysia Su | The Chronicle

Bobby Colton Beat Writer One-and-done has been the fad in college basketball over the last number of years. But although programs have had their share of regular-season success using the strategy, there have been few that have cut down the nets in April.

Connecticut had upperclassmen Shabazz Napier and Ryan Boatright guiding the Huskies to the title last season.

Louisville had Peyton Siva, Russ Smith and Gorgui Dieng the year before. There was the 2011 Kemba Walker Huskies. The 2010 Jon Scheyer/Nolan Smith/Kyle Singler Blue Devils. The 2009 Tyler Hansbrough/Ty Lawson/Danny Green Tar Heels.

The list stretches on for pages and pages.

And herein lies the problem for the top-seeded Blue Devils.

Duke starts three prodigious freshmen in Tyus Jones, Justise Winslow and Jahlil Okafor. All three were Wayman Tisdale National Freshman of the Year Finalists, with Okafor taking home the honors Tuesday. Okafor also became the first freshman to win ACC Player of the Year. The trio has combined for 51.6 percent of the Blue Devils’ points, and in 24 of 33 games a freshman has led Duke in scoring. Additionally, 22 of

the 28 20-point games from a Blue Devil have come from one of the team’s precocious neophytes.

But as good as those freshmen are, they alone will not be able to carry Duke to the promised land. It simply isn’t the way college basketball works.

The only team of the past decade to raise a banner at the end of the year while featuring mostly freshmen was Kentucky’s 2012 team. But the difference maker for them wasn’t the transcendent Anthony Davis, or freakish Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Instead, it was the team’s lone true rotation senior—Darius Miller.

Miller wasn’t the team’s second option offensively the way senior Quinn Cook arguably is for the Blue Devils, but he surely made his presence felt in the NCAA tournament. During the regular season Miller averaged 26.1 minutes and 9.9 points on 47.4 percent shooting. However, during the tournament he scaled up his production. His minutes ballooned to 30.3 per game, and his scoring up to 11.7 points on 56.1 percent shooting. His two 19-point outbursts during the tournament were the lift his Wildcats needed to get to the Final Four in New Orleans. Sure, it was Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist who garnered the national attention—just like it’s currently Okafor and Tyus Jones for Duke—but Miller was the difference-maker.

To provide the necessary Miller-esque experience for NCAA Tournament success, Duke will need none other than its captain, Cook. Although he is not the only upperclassman on the team, and although Cook speaks glowingly of his teammates’ preparedness, the other three non-freshmen haven’t really had any meaningful tournament experience.

Amile Jefferson is the most experienced of the group, having played a total of 47 minutes in five games, including some key minutes against Creighton in 2013 and a start against Mercer last season. But that’s hardly a long track record. Marshall Plumlee has just six tournament minutes under his belt, Matt Jones only two.

The problem with Cook as the experienced sage however is that he simply hasn’t been great in the postseason. Duke’s floor general has played in 14 games between the ACC and NCAA tournaments, playing 24.7 minutes per game. In those games Cook has averaged just 8.1 points per game on 39.6 percent shooting—not exactly eye-popping numbers.

The numbers look slightly worse in NCAA tournament games for the captain, where Cook drops to 8.0 points on 35.3 percent shooting.To get the same sort of lift from their senior, the Blue Devils are going to need regular season Cook, not postseason Cook.

In the ACC tournament loss to Notre Dame, Cook was hardly his usual self, shooting a paltry 2-for-12 from the floor en route to just seven points. The performance was bad enough that Cook said Tuesda that it took him “a day...a day and a half” to get himself straightened out after being knocked out of his final ACC tournament. But after a playersonly meeting in Cook’s hotel room and some time to get his head right, the point guard is ready for action once again.

Despite his checkered postseason record, it can’t be forgotten that he was more or less the only player who came to play against Mercer last season. Although he did not start, Cook led the team in scoring with 23 points and was the only player on the team to shoot better than 50.0 percent from the floor.

Coming into the season, Cook was set to be a pivotal part of the Blue Devils’ success. He has mostly cashed in on his promise by putting up career-highs in points, field goal percentage, three-point percentage and free throw percentage. But now, in March, the pressure is back squarely on the captain’s shoulders, where he will have to be “The Guy” once more to get that fifth banner he’s had his sights set on all season.

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Izzi Clark | Chronicle File Photo Senior Quinn Cook is averaging 15.7 points per game—good for second on the team—and will look to keep the success going in the tournament.

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THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015 | 13

Men’s Basketball

Changing roster forces Blue Devils to adapt Ryan Hoerger Beat Writer Quinn Cook stuck around campus in the summer to get in shape for his last season in a Duke uniform, working on strength, speed and endurance. It paid off— the regular season marathon was the captain’s best to date, posting career-highs in points per game, field goal percentage and 3-point shooting playing opposite floor general Tyus Jones.

Now, with the sprint to the Final Four about to start, Cook and his teammates have saved something extra for the stretch run.

At 29-4, Duke has looked dominant for much of the regular season, but the in-game success has not come without major adjustments on and off the court.

Midseason roster shakeups and late-season injuries have forced head coach Mike Krzyzewski—known for his difficult practices—to tweak the routine to keep his players fresh throughout the regular season.

“A big thing for me [this season] is I’ve had to really tone down the practices,” Krzyzewski said after Duke’s win at Virginia Tech Feb. 25. “We’re in it for the long haul, and we have to do those things.”

The December departure of sophomore Semi Ojeleye to Southern Methodist—the third Blue Devil to transfer in the past four seasons—left Duke with just nine eligible scholarship players. Just more than a month later, the dismissal of junior guard Rasheed Sulaimon trimmed that number to eight.

Ankle injuries to a slew of Blue Devils—Cook, Grayson Allen and star center Jahlil Okafor among them—only heightened the importance of using practice time smartly. Cook compared the situation to his sophomore year, when seniors Seth Curry and Ryan Kelly were hampered by injuries for much of the season but still helped lead the team to the Elite Eight.

“We don’t have as much contact at practice anymore and practices aren’t as long. It’s hard because you don’t really have days in between [games]...so you can only go so hard,” assistant head coach Jon Scheyer said before Duke’s Feb. 7 game at Florida State. “We’ve tried to really balance being prepared but also not overworking or still being fresh. That’s a fine line and we’ve tried to do that and really keep the amount of contact down.”

The shrinking roster forced reserves Allen and Matt Jones into the spotlight, and both have come on strong in the team’s past 13 games. Jones’ scoring has nearly doubled in Sulaimon’s absence, averaging 8.2 points per game since Jan. 31 and stepping into the starting lineup in place of junior captain Amile Jefferson for the last seven games.

“I just knew that I had to take what I’d done and take it to a higher level. I’ve been trying to do that since day one. Coach has been behind me and the players have been behind me, so it’s been a great atmosphere,” Jones said of his increased role before the Blue Devils hosted Syracuse Feb. 28. “I told myself that it was my moment now and I had to just take advantage of it.”

Allen did not play at Wisconsin, at Louisville or at Notre Dame, but, like Jones, appears to be growing in confidence as the postseason ramps up. The Jacksonville, Fla., native has scored more than five points just four times since the start of conference play, with three of those outings coming after the calendar flipped to March. His 27-point barrage to fuel Duke’s rout of Wake Forest March 4 was exactly the sort of offensive outburst fans had been waiting for, and his ability to contribute consistently off the bench See Practice on Page 15

Darbi Griffith | Chronicle File Photo Duke sophomore Matt Jones has started the last seven games for the Blue Devils.

Jennie Xu | Chronicle File Photo Freshman point guard Tyus Jones has started all 33 games for the Blue Devils heading into the NCAA tournament.

14 | THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015

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Eric Lin | Chronicle File Photo Duke center Jahlil Okafor has had one of the more impressive rookie campaigns in program history.

HYPE

continued from page 6 years I’ve seen that type of togetherness from a Duke team—the rest tried, but never truly achieved it.

Players talk about Duke being a brotherhood all the time. For the most part, that is true. Teams of the present constantly look for inspiration from the past, and players from the past try their best to mentor teams of the present.

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believing that the bond between these Blue Devils run far deeper than the lines on a basketball court.

Just because this year’s Blue Devils are a championship-caliber team does not mean they will survive long enough to cut down the nets. March is cruel and unpredictable, and even the bestequipped teams can meet an untimely end at any moment.

Tuesday afternoon Duke met the media and vowed to play every game in this tournament like it was the team’s last. I’ll be trying to watch them the same way. Because this combination of talent, toughness and togetherness is something we might not see again for a long time.

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THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015 | 15

PRACTICE

continued from page 13 alongside Jefferson and center Marshall Plumlee will be critical for a deep postseason run.

Roles in practice have changed as well. With the eight eligible scholarship players and transfer Sean Obi, the Blue Devils still needed a final player on the floor on the occasions when five-on-five makes an appearance on Krzyzewski’s practice plan. Enter walk-ons Nick Pagliuca and Sean Kelly.

“Having Nick and Sean involved, really they do a really good job, they play their roles,” Scheyer said.

“It’s allowed guys like Matt and Grayson, they’ve had the ball in their hands more [and so have] other guys like Sean Obi, Marshall. They’ve been able to work on their games, so that’s been really good for them to take control of that.”

By toning down practice, Krzyzewski acknowledged that “slippage” can happen, particularly on the defensive end, as was the case against the last-place Hokies, who took the Blue Devils to the wire before falling in overtime.

The Blue Devils rank 58th in basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy’s defensive efficiency rating, and will likely need to slow down some prolific offenses if they hope to reach Indianapolis the Final Four for the first time since cutting down the nets in the same city in 2010. “[In practice] we don’t have that many numbers, so obviously we try to conserve as much energy as possible. So in the games we tend to go back kind of [lackadaisically],” Jones said. “We have to fight human nature as a team, and make sure everyone is emotionally involved in the game.”

Emotional involvement is Cook’s forte. The captain has led by example all season, energizing crowds and teammates alike with his fiery persona on the court. The short bench has meant more and more minutes for the floor general, who in one five-game February stretch played four complete games—two of which went to overtime—and sat just one minute in the fifth.

Cook plays the fourth-most minutes per game of any player in the South region at 35.7 per game, with Tyus Jones not far behind. The senior has said he rarely feels tired after games, which is good news for Duke—a deep Blue Devil run will require Cook to play plenty of highquality minutes.

And although the team’s four freshmen—half of Duke’s scholarship players—are making their NCAA tournament debuts, they’ll already be well-accustomed to the energysaving practice schedule built to accommodate the harsh realities of two-game weekends in the postseason.

•••

Jesús Hidalgo | Chronicle File Photo Blue Devil freshman guard Grayson Allen has come on late, scoring double-digits in three of Duke’s last seven games.

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Surcharges are not taxes. See sprint.com/taxesandfees.

•••

Activ. Fee: $36/line. Credit approval req. Sprint Family Share Pack: Off er ends 5/14/15. No discounts apply to access charges. Includes unlimited domestic Long Distance calling and texting. Data allowance as specified. Third-party content/downloads are add’l charge. Int’l svcs are not included. Max of 5 phone/tablet/MBB lines. Data: Includes 12GB of on-network shared data usage and 100MB off -network data usage. Add’l on-network data usage: 1.5¢/MB. Add’l off -network data can be added by opt in only for 25¢/MB for tablets/MBBs. Mobile Hotspot Usage pulls from your shared data and off -network allowances. Monthly Access Charge: For customers activating before 3/12/15: After 3/31/2016, customer will be charged applicable access charge in addition to data allowance charge. For customers activating 3/13/15 – 5/14/15: After 5/31/2016, customer will be charged applicable access charge in addition to data allowance charge. To avoid charges, customer must contact Sprint to make changes. Sprint Easy Pay or lease obligations will still apply if applicable. Switching to the 12GB tier from a higher data tier will terminate your waived access promotion. Usage Limitations: Other plans may receive prioritized bandwidth availability. To improve data experience for the majority of users, throughput may be limited, varied or reduced on the network. Sprint may terminate service if off -network roaming usage in a month exceeds: (1) 800 min. or a majority of min.; or (2) 100MB or a majority of KB. Prohibited network use rules apply — see sprint.com/termsandconditions. $350 American Express® Reward Card Off er: Off ers end 5/14/15. Consumer, SDP and CL lines purchasing a new non-subsidized device or Certified Pre-Owned device and porting a new line from an active wireless line at another carrier on a qualified plan. Amount based on ETF (early termination fee) charged or remaining balance on install-bill device (excludes prepaid devices). Line must remain active and in good standing to receive the Reward Card. You must register and submit your final bill showing your ETF or installment balance within 60 days of switching to Sprint. Allow 8 weeks for your Reward Card to arrive. Register at sprint.com/join2015. Excludes 100+ Corporateliable, upgrades, replacements and ports made between Sprint entities or providers associated with Sprint (i.e., Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, and Assurance). Reward Card: Terms and conditions apply to Reward Cards. See Cardholder Agreement or visit www.americanexpress.com/sprint for details. Subject to applicable law, a $3.00 monthly service fee applies beginning in the seventh month after Card issuance. Card is issued by American Express Prepaid Card Management Corporation. American Express is not the sponsor of this promotion. SDP Discount: Avail. for eligible company employees or org. members (ongoing verification). Discount subject to change according to the company’s agreement with Sprint and is avail. upon request for select monthly svc charges. Discount only applies to data service for Sprint Family Share Pack. Not avail. with no credit check off ers or Mobile Hotspot add-on. Other Terms: Off ers and coverage not available everywhere or for all phones/networks. May not be combined with other off ers. Restrictions apply. See store or sprint.com for details. ©2015 Sprint. All rights reserved. Sprint and the Sprint logo are trademarks of Sprint. Other marks are the property of their respective owners N155070

16 | THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015

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