COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S FINAL FOUR : Duke, Michigan Turn Tide : Game 2: Blue Devils wake up from first-half slumber with 31-6 run en route to 81-78 victory over Indiana.

As halftime speeches go, the ones delivered by Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Bobby Hurley during the intermission of Saturday night’s Final Four semifinal game were as tame as a house cat.

Rather than rant about a five-point deficit, Krzyzewski calmly mentioned the obvious: that the No. 1 ranked Blue Devils were playing as if they had been sedated moments before tipoff. Only Duke point guard Hurley, Krzyzewski said, was performing like someone who wanted to win a second consecutive national championship.

Then Krzyzewski left the room. Once gone, Hurley issued a little reminder of his own.

“We didn’t play as hard as Indiana did in the first half,” Hurley told the Blue Devils.

Nor did they in the second half. Duke played harder. Hard enough to overcome that halftime deficit, stretch its lead to double digits and then hold on for an 81-78 victory against the Hoosiers, who almost staged an improbable comeback of their own in the waning moments.

“I thought they played better than we did in the first half and then we played better than they did,” Krzyzewski said.

He was right, of course. Count the final two minutes of the first half and the first 10 minutes of the second half and Duke outscored Indiana, 31-6. The Blue Devils did it by actually guarding someone. They hustled and dived for loose balls. They pushed the Hoosiers into foul trouble (three starters and one reserve fouled out). They overcame an ankle injury to their best defender, Brian Davis, and an off, off night by All-American center Christian Laettner, who finished with only eight points on two-for-eight shooting.

Indiana did its part. When the Hoosiers had a chance to put the defending national champions away, they failed to do so. When Duke increased its intensity level, the Hoosiers stayed put.

“Stuff wasn’t going our way and our intensity kind of dissipated,” Indiana center Eric Anderson said.

Most helpful--at least, as far as Duke was concerned--was a technical foul called on the Indiana bench with 18:06 to play. Referee Ted Valentine assessed the technical, later telling Hoosier captain Calbert Cheaney that it was made “because the bench jumped up.”

Is that so? Indiana Coach Bob Knight nearly jumped through the Metrodome roof after witnessing the call. He kept yelling to Valentine, “What’d I say? What’d I say?”

Valentine ignored him.

“That’s the first and only time (in my career) that we’ve been assessed a technical because the bench jumped up,” Knight said later, trying hard to bite his tongue.

The call, yet another tiny opening made available by Indiana, seemed to energize the Blue Devils. Hurley, who matched a personal best by scoring 26 points, made the two free throws that come with such a call. Then Grant Hill blocked a shot by Hoosier guard Damon Bailey. Then Hill, with the help of a perfect pick by Davis on Indiana’s Chris Reynolds, drove to the basket and rolled in a layup.

The shot gave Duke a 43-42 lead. The Blue Devils never relinquished it--no matter how hard Indiana tried late in the game.

And try they did. Down by nine points with 1:16 left, Knight sent sophomore guard Todd Leary into the game with easy-to-understand instructions: “If you get open, shoot it.”

Leary, used sparingly during the season, proceeded to sink three three-pointers in a row. His last shot, with 27 seconds remaining, cut the Duke lead to 77-73. The Blue Devils’ margin shrunk to 78-75 when Matt Nover made two free throws with 24.6 seconds to play.

“That kid,” Krzyzewski said of Leary, “he had nine points in a minute (actual time, 25 seconds). I don’t know if he played the guy in (the movie) ‘Hoosiers.’ ”

Indiana still had a chance, especially when Hurley, in one of the few mistakes he made the entire night, stepped on the out-of-bounds line while taking an inbounds pass from Laettner. Those 24 seconds remained, plenty of time for the Hoosiers to atone for second-half mistakes.

Instead, guard Jamal Meeks missed a game-tying three pointer. The Hoosiers would receive no more opportunities to tie the score, unless you count Eric Anderson’s full-court heave as the buzzer sounded. That shot didn’t reach the backboard.

Duke trailed, 42-37, at halftime, but it could have been--perhaps should have been--much worse.

Laettner, so perfect a week ago during the East Regional final, was far from that on this night.

Asked to explain the reasons for his performance, Laettner said: “There were a lot of guys around me.”

Nor was he much help on defense. Alan Henderson, a freshman, scored 11 points during the first half, many of them at Laettner’s expense. And when Henderson wasn’t scoring against Laettner, Anderson was. No wonder Krzyzewski spent much of the first 20 minutes with a scowl on his face.

Of course, Laettner wasn’t the only one playing in a daze. At times, it appeared as if the Blue Devils were reluctant to take a shot, any shot. They certainly weren’t in the mood to match Indiana’s motion offense.

Meanwhile, the Hoosiers were nearly unstoppable. They made 12 of their first 14 shots. But when it counted, when Duke made another of its fabled runs, Indiana couldn’t catch up.

* BOBBY HURLEY

The Duke point guard makes Indiana pay for its decision to take Blue Devil center Christian Laettner out of the offense. C8