COLLEGE BASKETBALL : Michigan All Business as It Eyes Duke

Seven months is all it took. Seven months since the April night in Minneapolis -- when Duke awakened at halftime to the realization that it was perilously close to passing the NCAA basketball championship on to a handful of nicknamed freshmen from Michigan, and promptly blew them out. Seven months, and now their roles are reversed, just like that.

There was Michigan forward Chris Webber Wednesday afternoon, a Fab Five Freshman no more and grown to 6-10 1/2, 255 pounds, plopping into a chair at Crisler Arena. “You know, UNLV beat Duke by 30 before Duke won two in a row,” Webber said. “Well, Duke beat us by 20. So we’ll be going back.”

This was barely 24 hours after Duke senior point guard Bobby Hurley finished off a typically crisp Blue Devil drill session and scanned the floor at Cameron Indoor Stadium. “This is a fun team,” he said. “Last year we had seniors (Christian Laettner and Brian Davis) who were very mature people, so the team was very businesslike. This year it’s different.”

So this year Michigan is all business and Duke is all fun. Maybe it’s apropos, what with time being compressed in big-time college sports these days. Players don’t sign on for four years; they play when they’re and they leave when they’re ready. Things change fast and you dare not blink. One season is a lifetime of its own.

Changing attitudes aside, Duke and Michigan remain tethered. Not only because they played in last year’s final and not only because they play each other again Dec. 5 in Durham, but because they are still the prototypes. Duke of the staid, very solid program, Michigan of the superstar recruiting coup. Every other school wishes to be one of them.

Between them, they have three of the eight players on the Little Dream Team that played the U.S. Olympians for a week last June: Webber, Hurley and Duke forward Grant Hill. It was an experience that enhanced market value for all three, to say nothing of mutual respect. Webber and Hill had long been friends. Hurley said, of all the players in camp, “Chris Webber is one guy I’d love to have on my team, besides Grant, who I already have.”

And Webber said, “I wouldn’t mind that, either. Wouldn’t mind having him on my team.”

But as teams, they face unique circumstances. Michigan waits for the NCAA to decide the status of Webber, sophomore guard Jalen Rose and senior center Eric Riley, who may have violated NCAA rules by accepting $300 each at a charity basketball event in August in Holland, Mich. They could be suspended for one or several games.

NCAA rules (this one is more vague, ridiculous and unenforceable than most) stipulate that players who work at camps can be paid only the going rate for performing camp duties, and not be paid simply for being a star making an appearance. Also, there is a rule against more than one athlete from the same school appearing at the same camp at the same time.

Webber, Rose and Riley presented awards, signed autographs and judged a dunking contest, all to benefit a 4-year-old Holland youth who needed an operation to correct a hearing loss. Michigan Coach Steve Fisher said Wednesday, “We checked everything out, cleared it all.” Because Fisher has said he approved the appearance, he has recommended that the NCAA suspend him.

In any case, Rose said, “I just want them to get it over with. We asked, the coaches said it was OK.”

A hand-slap punishment seems certain, and Michigan will roll into the Big Ten season as the chief opponent on any number of schedules, much as Duke has been for the past two winters. Michigan brings the added element of being eminently dislikeable for opponents, what with immense talent, trash-talk and mountains of publicity.

“There’s not much question that we’re going to be the hunted this year,” Fisher said. Webber was more emphatic. “We’re the most exciting team in the country,” he said. “People are going to put a lot of pressure on us, but that doesn’t matter.”

Duke’s attitude of recent vintage went to the NBA with Laettner, who by himself was more disliked than the entire Michigan team and some entire conferences. Which is not to say his absence is some sort of twisted positive, because it is not. But Duke has many, many good players left behind to take up the cause of student-athleticism and such.

Hurley is one. Hill is another, and even better. Thomas Hill, Antonio Lang, sophomore center Cherokee Parks, who won’t have Laettner all over him in practice. Freshman guard Chris Collins, Doug’s son, is more polished at the same age than Hurley was, if less talented. “We only have 10 players,” Coach Mike Krzyzewski said, “but all of them will be able to play. And our perimeter, with Bobby, Grant and Thomas, is as good as anybody’s.”

And then Krzyzewski stepped out of coachspeak. He sat up on the wooden Cameron bleachers and recalled the psychological warfare of a year ago, when all the talk was of defending this and defending that. He smiled that ... well ... devilish smile of his. Everybody is watching Michigan this time.

“Most people don’t believe anybody can win three in a row,” he said, “although ... we might.”

Underdogs. They’ll say anything for a little attention.