COLLEGE BASKETBALL : One Way to Beat Blue Devils: Duke It Out

Where were you the night the express elevator carrying No. 1 Duke, No. 2 Oklahoma State and No. 5 Arkansas snapped a cable and plunged back to reality?

Speaking for the stunned masses, we were sitting in front of a television set wondering which was worse: Christian Laettner’s two missed shots in the final nine seconds of Duke’s loss to North Carolina or the buzz cut of Tar Heel sophomore center Eric Montross, who looks as if he stumbled into a Marine Corps barbershop one unfortunate afternoon.

Of course, looks can be deceiving. Montross, probably the most prized recruit of 1990, didn’t quite have the impact North Carolina followers had expected during his freshman season. At 7 feet, 260 pounds, Montross seemed out of place in the Tar Heel offense. He averaged only 5.8 points per game.

This season as a starter, his scoring average is nearly 11 points--not bad, not great. But if you watched him outplay the celebrated Laettner on Wednesday, you saw someone accomplish the things necessary to defeat the Blue Devils.

This isn’t our list; it’s from Florida State Coach Pat Kennedy and Clemson Coach Cliff Ellis.

According to Kennedy and Ellis, the keys to beating Duke are:

--Be physical. Duke pushes and shoves. To beat the Blue Devils, you have to push and shove back.

Did you happen to see Montross at game’s end? Stitches under his left eye. A gash on the right side of his head. Blood on his jersey. Montross, as well as 7-0 teammate Kevin Salvadori, played tough, all right. The result: Laettner, banged all night, was mostly ineffective.

--Limit their dunks. The more Duke dunks, the less chance of an upset.

By our count, the Blue Devils recorded only one alley-oop and two other jams.

--Take advantage of Duke’s one statistical weakness: rebounding.

Final rebounding totals from the loss to North Carolina: Tar Heels 36, Blue Devils 31.

--Work the middle of the Duke defense.

Notice how often the Tar Heels successfully challenged Duke in the paint? We lost track, it was so many times.

There were a couple of other suggestions Kennedy and Ellis mentioned earlier this week, the most prominent being Duke’s pressure defense. If you could neutralize the pressure the Blue Devils put on the player with the ball, they argued, you could run your offense and who knows, maybe spring a surprise.

North Carolina did that very thing. The Tar Heels made their share of poor moves (their lack of clock management in the final 1:30 nearly cost them the game), but they also forced Duke to make errors galore.

“We can get beat in these games, no question about it,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski had said when asked earlier about a Blue Devil schedule that included North Carolina, Louisiana State, Georgia Tech and UCLA.

And there is also no question about the impact of a battered, but happy Montross, who, on an eventful night at Chapel Hill, outdid Laettner. Maybe it had something to do with that Montross Mohawk.

The Upset, Part II: How hard is it to go undefeated in the Atlantic Coast Conference? North Carolina Coach Dean Smith, whose Tar Heels did it in 1987, once predicted no team would soon repeat the feat.

Clemson’s Ellis said it would be easier for Duke to win another national title than go through the ACC schedule unbeaten.

“There will be teams that may have losing records that will really deserve to be in the NCAA tournament,” Ellis said. “That’s how good this league is.”

Or as Florida State’s Kennedy put it: “I think it’s a monster league.”

Ellis and Kennedy aren’t the only two coaches busy promoting their conferences. With next month’s tournament fast approaching, nearly every coach becomes a public relations man for his team or conference.

We recommend doing what Krzyzewski does when tinkering with a tournament field of 64: Consider strength of conference, nonconference victories and site of nonconference victories.

If that’s the case, then the Big Eight, Atlantic Coast, Pacific 10, Big Ten and Southeastern conferences can rest easy.

At last look, the Big Eight was 97-13 against nonconference opponents. The ACC was next (76-19), followed by the Pac-10 (80-26), the Big Ten (80-27) and the SEC (98-35).

Meanwhile, the Southwest Conference is 66-38 against nonconference opponents. Things have gotten so bad that Baylor lost to Missouri Kansas City last Saturday. The Western Athletic Conference is 64-41 and the Big West is 56-37. If you subtract UNLV’s victories, the record is 48-37.

We thought North Carolina’s Dean Smith was the master of basketball propaganda. Then we listened to Arizona Coach Lute Olson.

Earlier this week, Olson suggested that it was harder playing at California or Stanford than at Duke. Not Duquesne, but Duke, where the Blue Devils are 39-1 since 1990 . . . where 9,314 fans are so close to the court, they could untie a player’s sneakers . . . where the obnoxious but clever Cameron Crazies reside, inflicting verbal abuse at a moment’s notice.

That Duke.

Told about Olson’s comments, USC Coach George Raveling nearly collapsed in laughter.

“Is Lute on something?” Raveling said.

Raveling has taken teams to Cal. He has taken teams to Stanford. And he has witnessed a game at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium. With that said, Raveling announced that “I’d rather do two years in Attica” than play a game at Duke.

Reminded of Olson’s assessment--that, in essence, a trip to Duke, compared to Cal or Stanford, was a walk in the park--Raveling couldn’t help himself.

“A walk in what park, Central Park?” Raveling said. “Lute’s been in Tucson too long, man.”

Kansas Coach Roy Williams is on the NCAA tournament Midwest Regional Advisory Committee, which means he will soon submit a list of 15 teams worthy of invitations. Right now, Williams said he wouldn’t rule out a list dominated by teams from his own conference. “If I think six teams in the Big Eight are in the top 15, yes, I will recommend six,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that just to promote the Big Eight.” Of course not. The picked six: Kansas, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa State and Nebraska. . . . The big question surrounding Tuesday’s Indiana-Illinois game had nothing to do with the probable score (an Illini loss was almost a given), but what would happen afterward. When Indiana beat Illinois last year at Champaign, Hoosier Coach Bob Knight happily ripped Illini Coach Lou Henson, never one of his favorites. Henson responded by calling Knight “a classic bully.” So what happened this time after Indiana defeated Illinois? Knight and Henson--gasp--shook hands. “All you people are really disappointed, aren’t you,” Henson told reporters in the postgame news conference. Now that you mention it. . . . Nothing personal, but if we were running the NCAA Selection Committee, we’d revoke the Southwest Conference’s automatic bid and give it to the newly formed (but far more entertaining and competitive) Great Midwest Conference. There are only six teams in the Great Midwest, but three of them--DePaul, Cincinnati and Memphis State--have a good chance of earning an at-large invitation.

Words to forget: “This team is pretty focused right now. We want to keep the streak going. I think we’ll really play well.” So said Oklahoma State’s Sean Sutton to the Tulsa Tribune the day before Nebraska beat the previously undefeated Cowboys.

Top 10

As selected by staff writer Gene Wojciechowski.

No. Team Record 1. Duke 17-1 2. Indiana 16-3 3. Kansas 17-1 4. Oklahoma State 20-1 5. UCLA 16-1 6. Ohio State 15-3 7. Arkansas 17-4 8. Arizona 16-3 9. North Carolina 16-3 10. Michigan State 14-4

Waiting list: Syracuse (16-3), Missouri (15-3), Tulane (17-2), USC (15-3), Connecticut (16-3).