NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : Duke Makes the Most of It as Temple Misses Its Shot at Final Four

Duke senior Billy King, who was close enough to know, did not see Mark Macon’s expression change once.

Not after any of Macon’s 8 air-balls, and not after any of the other 21 shots Macon missed Saturday.

Each time King looked at Macon, he met the same unreadable look that Temple’s poised freshman has worn all season. It was the same expression Macon wore in Temple’s 33 previous games--32 of them victories--and it was still on his face at the end of Temple’s final game, a 63-53 loss to Duke in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. East Regional final that sent the Blue Devils to the Final Four for the second time in three years.

Duke will meet the winner of today’s Midwest Regional--Kansas or Kansas State--next Saturday at Kansas City, Mo.

Like any good John Chaney protege, Macon was true to himself to the end. He kept his poise, and he kept on shooting. Chaney, intent on playing out Temple’s final game the same way he had coached the Owls all year, never substituted for Macon, who by halftime already had missed 11 of 15 shots.

“Mark has done the job for us for 33 games, and I wasn’t about to take him out,” said Chaney, whose team finished the season ranked No. 1 and was top-seeded in the East Regional.

There was no question that it was a bad day for Macon before a crowd of 19,633 at the Meadowlands Arena. He had made 47% of his shots before this game, and made just 6 of 29 Saturday, finishing with 13 points. From three-point range, from which he was making 43%, he made but 1 of 8.

“There is no big, magical mystery to the game,” Chaney said. “We just did not shoot the ball well. It was one of our worst shooting days ever, but part of that was because of Duke’s defense.”

Temple had its worst shooting performance of the season, hitting just 18 of 63 shots--28.6%. Macon alone missed more shots than all his teammates combined.

Credit the lapse to a difficult day for Macon, but also to excellent defense by Duke, and particularly by King, whose own shots veer away from the basket with inconceivable variety but whose defensive abilities have earned him a starting position and the respect of many an opponent.

Macon wanted to shoot straight-up but would find that King had forced him beyond his range. Macon tried to drive, but King would force him away from his favored left. Macon tried the shake-and-jiggle of the shoulders that has left other defenders looking at his back, and King was still in front of him. Macon tried to lean in, bank in a shot and draw the foul, and King leaned away, leaving Macon with another miss, and no foul.

“Sometimes players don’t realize they’ve been forced away from their normal area, maybe three or four feet farther out,” said Mike Krzyzewski, Duke’s coach. “Their operating area isn’t the one they’re used to. That’s what we did to Temple today.”

Although King was the primary defender, Duke employs a switching man-to-man defense, and it was team defense that kept Temple from ever establishing its game.

“I thought our defense was just great,” Krzyzewski said. “Going into the game, we wanted to make Macon and (Mike) Vreeswyk put it on the floor and not take three-pointers. . . . That’s the best team we have played all year. They were definitely deserving of their No. 1 ranking. They just lost to a team that was at its best today.”

Although Temple led early, 17-7, it was clear that Macon was having difficulty.

Jim Maloney, a Temple assistant coach, called Macon to the sideline, just five or six minutes into the game. “Slow down,” he told him.

“You can let them shoot through it, or you can take them out,” Maloney said. “We’ve been consistent all year in letting them shoot through it. . . . He’s shown for 33 games he can do it. And who would we bring in?”

It was Temple’s lack of depth, in part, that hurt it Saturday. Jerome Dowdell, the Owls’ first backcourt player off the bench, averaged less than five minutes a game.

Duke (28-6) will return to the Final Four with a number of the same players who were on the 1986 team that lost to Louisville in the title game. But the leaders of this team were the substitutes of the 1985-86 team, led by Johnny Dawkins.

Duke forward Danny Ferry, who scored 20 points against Temple, was a freshman on that team, as was point guard Quin Snyder, whose three-point shot six minutes into the second half Saturday gave Duke its first lead--and one it did not relinquish--34-31.

King and Kevin Strickland, who scored 21 points against Temple, are the only seniors on this team.

“It was great to be on that team, but it feels good that you’re taking the shots, you’re playing the defense,” King said. “Now we remember what we learned under David Henderson and Johnny Dawkins, and we can put it to use in this tournament.”

It was because of that team, in fact, that King began to become the defensive player he is. His typical assignment in practice as a freshman was to guard Dawkins, one of the best guards to play at Duke.

Even for King, who held Notre Dame’s David Rivers to single-digits earlier this season, Macon was no easy assignment.

“I know Mark Macon, that he will keep shooting, and that’s what his teammates want,” King said. “You can’t relax at any point or he’ll hit a three or get you to foul. You have to go to the buzzer, and then you relax and know the job is over.”

Duke pulled ahead by 10 midway through the second half, led by as many as 15 and still led by 11 with 1:15 to go. With six seconds left, Macon made a driving dunk down the lane. But Strickland made a layup just before the buzzer, giving Duke, appropriately, the last word.

For Temple, which loses five seniors and is 64-6 over the past two seasons, it is in some ways the end of an era.

“I want them to know this is a commencement, not an ending,” Chaney said.

But Macon, the player who brought the Owls here, and, in the end, could take them no further, has many games ahead of him.

Howard Evans, the Temple point guard and a senior, does not.

“I told (Macon) to keep shooting, and don’t try too hard,” Evans said. “He was pressing a little bit, and I said ‘let it come to you.’ . . . That’s Mark’s game. He’s been doing it all year. He couldn’t stop now.”

For Duke, the season continues.

“We look at this as a two-game tournament, and now we get to go to another,” Ferry said.

East Regional Notes

Mark Macon was not available for comment after the game, as Coach John Chaney has shielded him from interviews since Temple’s loss to Nevada Las Vegas in January. . . . Billy King’s basketball idols are offensive wizards--Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan.