Replacing Mike Krzyzewski isn't easy. It's probably impossible, if we're being honest. But someday, someone will have to do exactly that at Duke, and many feel that Jeff Capel, as the temporary fill-in for Coach K as he continues to recover from back surgery, is effectively auditioning for that unenviable job.
Through two weeks, it hadn't been going great for Capel.
Or Duke.
Coming into Saturday's game vs. unranked Miami, Duke -- you know, that team that was supposed to be some kind of juggernaut and the runaway national title favorite -- had dropped to No. 18 in the latest AP poll. Worse than that, they were 2-3 in ACC play, their worst mark this century, having dropped consecutive games to Florida State and Louisville by a combined 25 points to sink Capel's record to 1-2 as the acting shotcaller.
Then, after all that, Miami had them down 12 in the first half on Saturday. And all of a sudden, it felt like Duke's whole season was on the ropes. To that point, I think we'd all been taking the Blue Devils' struggles with a grain of salt. Or at least I know I had. The excuses were just so low-hanging. All the injuries. Coach K taking a month off. The unending drama surrounding Grayson Allen. Just a few days ago our Jerry Palm, when given the chance to resubmit his national title prediction, still picked Duke to cut down the nets in Phoenix, and I'm sure a lot of people agreed with him. Too much talent, we all said. They'll figure it out.
And yet, they didn't have squat figured out against a pretty harmless Miami team on Saturday. Heading into the locker room trailing 36-25, they were facing the all-too-real threat of falling to 2-4 in the ACC and, as crazy as it sounds, landing dangerously close to the dreaded tournament bubble. Somebody had to do something. And Capel, to his credit, did it, sitting three starters -- Allen, Harry Giles and Luke Kennard -- to begin the second half, replacing them with Frank Jackson, Marques Bolden and Matt Jones.
That, as our friend Bill Raftery might say, takes some serious onions.
In case you need your memory jogged, Allen was the popular preseason pick to win national player of the year. Kennard has been Duke's best player and is a national POY contender himself. Giles was, for most people's money, the best recruit in the country. All three of them are likely to go in the first round of the NBA Draft. And with your season perhaps hanging in the balance, you bench them? Man, could that have backfired.
But it didn't. Instead, Duke opened the second half on a 22-1 run. Jones scored all of his 13 points in the final 20 minutes. Duke got the message and clamped down defensively, forcing the Hurricanes into 12 turnovers in 12 minutes. And just like that, a potential crisis was averted. All told, the scoreboard read Duke 70, Miami 58, and really, by the end, it wasn't that close. But for a minute -- for 20 minutes, to be exact -- it was too close.
Moving forward, Duke can take a couple things from this win. One, it's nice to know you can win a ballgame when your best players don't play well. Allen finished with just seven points and one crooked finger. Giles, who is still struggling to make any kind of real impact on a consistent basis, had two points on two shots. Kennard finished with 11 points on nine shots. We will all continue to assume that this team will get it together, but in case it doesn't, winning ugly counts the same.
Also, the defense in the second half was obviously top-flight, though Miami isn't exactly the Golden State Warriors. Still, Duke showed guts. We may have to get used to this team figuring out little ways to win rather than cruising through the effortless motions of outclassing lesser-talented teams. When the chips are down, defense is always a good bet to get things done.
So who knows, maybe, by the time Coach K comes back and these guys have had a few more games to get used to playing together, this will all blow over. Maybe, by the time March rolls around, this will finally be the team we all expected it to be from the jump. And if that all happens, if Duke actually does use this rough stretch as a springboard and ends up cutting down the nets in Phoenix, which is still a very reasonable projection, I, for one, am going to remember this second half against Miami, and Capel's seriously ballsy move, as the night that saved the Blue Devils' season.
