COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA TOURNAMENT : Duke Is Battered, but Not Daunted : Midwest Regional: Laettner, Koubek are roughed up during 81-67 victory over Connecticut.

Connecticut put up its dukes.

Connecticut connected, leaving Duke cut.

Then Duke wiped the floor with ‘em.

When the Huskies tried to get tough Friday night in a basketball grudge match dating to last year’s tournament, the Blue Devils gave them a physical education, 81-67, at the NCAA Midwest Regional, where they will meet St. John’s for the championship Sunday.

Should Duke make it to the Final Four, it will be for the fourth consecutive season and fifth of the last six. Short of John Wooden’s championship seasons at UCLA, this may have become college basketball’s most distinguished achievement.

In another suspense-free attraction brought to you by CBS, your Continuous Blowout Station, the deadeyes from Duke made five three-point shots before the game was eight minutes old and eventually held a 17-point lead by halftime.

Connecticut’s only retaliation was a violent one that left Duke’s leading scorers, Christian Laettner and Greg Koubek, rubbing and shaking their heads.

Laettner’s skull was deliberately dribbled against the Silverdome floor by Connecticut’s Rod Sellers, who later said an un-Christian-like thing to Laettner after fouling out and drew a technical foul.

Koubek played part of the second half with blood streaming down his cheek, and teammate Grant Hill had to leave the game after being knocked to the floor onto his spine.

Koubek said: “Emotions seemed to be running a little hot out there.”

Could be Connecticut still hadn’t gotten over last year’s one-point tournament loss to Duke on Laettner’s last-second shot.

But losses to Duke are nothing new. St. John’s, too, was eliminated by the Blue Devils in last year’s tournament. Not until the 1990 championship game was Duke defeated by Nevada Las Vegas, which could develop into a rematch in 1991.

“We’re on a mission just to keep winning,” said Laettner, who scored his team-leading 19 points in only 29 minutes.

Six minutes into the game, Connecticut’s score still hadn’t reached double figures.

Thomas Hill made back-to-back three-point shots and Koubek sank a three-pointer to make the score 14-7. After the Huskies crept back within a point, Koubek and Bobby Hurley answered with two more three-pointers and, suddenly, it was 22-15. Duke was long gone.

“We let a Duke team jump on us,” said Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun, who did not mean it literally. “We thought one weakness we could exploit was their outside shooting.

“So much for that theory.”

The Blue Devils only took 45 shots in 40 minutes, such was their accuracy. They made 25 of them. Seven were three-pointers. Lay-ups were few and far-between.

Connecticut’s response?

Anger.

The chief offender was Sellers, the 6-foot-10 junior who refused to say what Laettner had done that made him act the way he did.

Late in the game, with Duke leading, 69-55, Laettner went after a loose ball and tied it up for a jump ball. While he lay on the floor, Sellers, unnoticed by any referee but not by the cameras of CBS, shoved Laettner in the side of the head, then grabbed it with both hands and slammed it against the floor.

A minute later, after Sellers fouled out with six points, he said something nasty to Laettner that had a parental connotation. Technical foul.

Said Duke’s coach, Mike Krzyzewski: “That was as physical a game as we’ve been in.”

He declined to elaborate, looking forward instead to Sunday’s game against a coach he admires, Lou Carnesecca.