NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL FINAL : Duke Left Frazzled, Dazzled

Watching the final minutes of the most lopsided championship game in the history of the NCAA tournament, Duke starters Christian Laettner, Alaa Abdelnaby, Phil Henderson and Robert Brickey sat silently at the end of the bench Monday night at McNichols Arena.

“I was just really disappointed,” Laettner said, “but I was kind of looking forward to see what Coach would say.”

And what did Coach Mike Krzyzewski tell the Blue Devils?

“He said not to be disappointed,” Laettner said. “He said they’re an excellent team and they just killed us tonight.”

That about summed it up.

Nevada Las Vegas squashed the Blue Devils, 103-73, and despite what Krzyzewski told them, the players were disappointed.

Mostly, though, they were impressed with their conquerors.

“I’ve never played in a game where we’ve been ambushed like that,” said freshman point guard Bobby Hurley. “Even (UNLV forward) Larry Johnson was out there nailing three-pointers. That was our worst loss of the season by far, but I think that’s by far the best team we’ve played.

“It’s really embarrassing to lose a game like that, especially such a big game, but they played incredibly out there.”

Said Laettner: “This might have been one of their best games, but if we got them on a worse night, who’s to say they wouldn’t beat us again?”

Krzyzewski called UNLV’s half-court defense the nation’s best.

“There is a difference between not playing well and a team not letting you play,” he said. “This was one of the great performances I’ve seen on defense. Their defense just would not let us play well. They wear you out. They beat us not just physically, but mentally.”

Duke made only 42.6% of its shots and made 23 turnovers.

“They played like men,” Laettner said of the Rebels.

And UNLV made the outmanned Blue Devils look like babes.

“We turned the ball over so many times and gave them so many transition baskets,” said Brickey, who buried his head in a towel for several minutes in the locker room. “They got layup after layup.”

At one point in the second half, UNLV scored 18 consecutive points in less than three minutes, turning a 10-point game into a blowout.

“It seemed like seven times in a row I was back there and they were just dunking over me,” Hurley said. “(They had) three-on-ones and four-on-ones. We made some turnovers and it seemed like they capitalized every time either with a three-pointer or a slam dunk.”

UNLV’s quickness overwhelmed Duke.

“There were a lot of times when we just threw the ball right to them,” Laettner said. “That’s just a compliment to their defense. They’re so quick and so athletic that we had a hard time running our offense.”

UNLV’s pressure forced the Blue Devils out of position, neutralizing the inside power of the 6-foot-11 Laettner and 6-10 Abdelnaby.

“It wasn’t just one person,” Laettner said. “It was their whole defensive scheme. There weren’t many chances to get the ball down low because they weren’t allowing us to pass down low.

“All our perimeter players really had trouble getting the ball below the foul line, which is the area where you have to take the ball to pass it inside. They did such a good job (defending the perimeter) that I caught myself running out to the ball to give Bobby someone to pass to. And when you do that, you’re not going to be in the blocks to score.”

As usual, UNLV used its defense to ignite its offense.

“I don’t think our offense was the problem as much as our defense,” said Hurley, who had three assists and five turnovers and scored only two points, missing all three of his shots. “When they played good defense, they denied the passing lanes and got steals that led to fast breaks.”

Meanwhile, nothing came easily for Duke, which scored only eight points off fast breaks while giving up 36 points in transition.

“They were so positive on the offensive end because they knew they had the upper hand on the defensive end,” Krzyzewski said of the Rebels, who made 61.2% of their shots, including 66.7% in the second half.

Krzyzewski, who has taken Duke to the Final Four four times in five seasons, but has yet to win a title, said he had never seen anything like it. He said he was in awe.

So were his players.

Said Hurley, who spent most of the weekend in bed with the flu: “Even if we were 100% healthy, I don’t know if we’d be in the game with them.”