Duke's Problems More Than 'One Game'

WASHINGTON -- When all else failed -- and in the wake of Duke's 89-77 loss to Georgetown, everything had -- Mike Krzyzewski laughed.

For the better part of two hours, Krzyzewski had worn a sort of granite expression that made Mount Rushmore look like it was made in a Jell-O mold. But after the game, Krzyzewski unclenched his jaw and opted for a joke in his opening remarks.

"The best thing we did was limit their offensive rebounds, they only had two," Krzyzewski said, adding a pause of a man who's never lost a press conference, "Of course, that's because they only missed 13 shots.

"That was supposed to be funny."

Instead, it was just another clunker for Duke.

The Verizon Center throbbed like a bad headache as Zombie Nation bounced wall to wall. President Obama and Vice President Biden sat courtside. And the raucous atmosphere made a snowy January Saturday feel like it was Madness already.

Ten minutes in, it was clear Duke, at least, was already in March form. Outmuscled and outmatched, Duke was in like a lion and sacrificed like a lamb.

Afterward, a calm Krzyzewski soberly explained the loss as one bad game.

"In the full body of work, of the 30-something games that you play, in 95 percent of them, you play your butts off and play the way you're supposed to play. If good, you're going to win a lot," Krzyzewski said. "For a few games, for whatever reason ... you can't match what the other guy is doing. That was one of those days today. Could never match what they did. Doesn't mean we're bad. We were bad today."

Twelve-point road losses aren't exactly the sort of thing to send coaches leaping from the backboards, but for Krzyzewski to call Saturday's loss one bad game is like calling the stock market crash one bad day. It's not the instance so much as the trend it foretells.

For a team that built its reputation on floor-slapping, tighter than Bobby Hurley's shorts defense, it was an historically awful outing, just two weeks after middling NC State ran roughshod over the Devils' defense.

Like two weeks earlier, the only 'D' Duke had Saturday was on their jersey. Even then, they probably should've double-checked to be sure no one was wearing "uke" gear.

The Blue Devils allowed the highest field-goal percentage by an opponent in team history, besting a record owned by the 1965-66 UCLA Bruins (How long ago was that? John Wooden was just a two-time national champion when he won that game). It was the first time a team eclipsed 70 percent since 1984, when Krzyzewski was in his fourth year and still had a full head of black hair.

Well, some things never change.

"Overall, we've played great defense," Krzyzewski said. "Today, it was not very good."

But it wasn't simply the defense nor was it simply a single game. Saturday's loss was a melting pot of Duke's problems since its last Final Four in 2004, getting manhandled by a bigger, badder team away from the confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Duke couldn't stop penetration on the perimeter. Georgetown point guard Chris Wright zipped past the Blue Devils' defense for 16 first-half points and his backcourt mate Austin Freeman scored 20, many by simply outrunning Duke in transition.

The long shaky front line, which was supposed to be a strength of this year's team, was overmatched and outmuscled by the Hoyas. Brian Zoubek, who started games earlier in the season, played just two minutes, collecting two fouls -- one in the first second he played -- and no other stats outside of a turnover. Lance Thomas scored eight points, but struggled terribly against a bigger, stronger Greg Monroe in what looked like a varsity against junior varsity matchup. The Plumlee brothers, who were the stars of Duke's mixed martial basketball win over Wake Forest two weeks ago with 32 points and 22 rebounds, finished with 10 points, five rebounds and eight fouls between them.

Offensively, Duke's guards couldn't create their own shots. Stop us if you've heard that one before. Just under seven minutes remained in the game before a Blue Devil guard scored a bucket in the paint. They would manage just eight all game. And with no true point guard, a weakness for the Blue Devils since Chris Duhon's departure in 2004, the transition game might as well have been trying to run on the snow outside. Duke didn't get a fast-break basket in the first half and managed just six all game.

Duke's depth has slowly disappeared as well, and once again three players were asked to carry the team as Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith played all but eight minutes of the game and scored 54 of the 77 points at an unhealthy 34.8 percent clip.

Despite Krzyzewski's confidence, none of that sounded particularly specific to Saturday's game. It may as well have been any of Duke's season-ending losses since 2004.

It didn't help either, that Georgetown didn't miss.

Of course, they might've taken more contested shots in the layup line. Duke's docile defensive nature, at least, is a new wrinkle.

"It's not just a question of lights-out shooting," Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. "It's the quality of the shots we got that was important. We didn't take bad shots."

So the Blue Devils were left with yet another humbling road loss, their fourth in five games this season, and a season that suddenly looks oh-so-familiar.

"We're not a powerhouse," Krzyzewski said. "We don't think Georgetown is a powerhouse. ... They didn't look good against Syracuse Monday, and we looked great against Florida State Wednesday. We have to find a level of consistency.

"You can't let one game define you."

But for Duke, its problems are long past one game.

Krzyzewski is right, of course. His team is good, and in a watered-down year for college basketball and with the pull-a-name-from-the-hat parity of the ACC, that might be good enough to win the ACC and secure a top-two seed in the NCAA tournament.

But is there any reason to believe the ending will be any different when the NCAA tournament starts and Duke faces a bigger, badder team from a major conference?

Then, once again, it'll be just one game.