COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S FINAL FOUR : Getting His Due at Duke : Humble Grant Hill Leaves His Mark on Blue Devils

To those who know him intimately, on the floor and in the aisles of Cameron Indoor Stadium, he is Grant. But to the general populace, who know Duke as Christian Laettner’s alma mater, as Bobby Hurley’s old haunt, he remains, as always, taken for granted.

Consider his placement on the Duke pyramid of success, which is forever topped by Mike Krzyzewski, the crafty Coach K, who has been out-consonanting and out-concentrating the opposition for years.

Then there is Laettner, the consummate pain in the keister, who not only angled for the spotlight at every turn but knew precisely what to do with it, as Kentucky basketball fans will be mumbling for the next 40 or 50 years.

Then there is Hurley, the gritty point guard who orchestrated the first consecutive NCAA titles since UCLA and now gets called to deliver inspirational speeches before Southeast Regional championship games.

Then, finally, one comes to Grant Hill. The Duke Who Devil. The all-but-invisible man who slinks here, skulks there and, with two more victories in Charlotte this weekend, will have three more Final Four championships than Glenn Robinson, Jason Kidd and Donyell Marshall combined.

Grant Hill exists in the periphery of Duke basketball lore, always with a hand in the action but seldom his face.

In 1991, when Hurley and Laettner lifted the Devils to their long-awaited first NCAA title with a stunning semifinal upset of undefeated Nevada Las Vegas, it was Hill who opened the game by grabbing a lob from Hurley and ramming it violently through the hoop, serving notice that David had come to Indianapolis with his slingshot fully loaded.

In 1992, when Laettner made the miracle shot against Kentucky, the one now reprised and revised for ESPN by comedian Chris Farley, it was Hill who launched the 70-foot inbounds pass that made it possible.

And in 1994, with millions of eyes trained on Purdue’s Glenn Robinson, awaiting another 44-point explosion in the Southeast Regional final, it was Hill who fronted him and checked him and denied him the ball, frustrating Robinson into a six-for-22 funk and spiriting away a 69-60 Duke triumph.

Hill was named outstanding player of the Southeast Regional, in spite of his own 11-point offensive output. Typical Hill. While freshman guard Jeff Capel is heading the highlight shows with a behind-the-back bounce pass to Antonio Lang, Hill is winning the game with a defensive slide-and-hand-check.

The postgame scene was also typical Hill.

First he glanced across the microphone table at Capel and Lang and Chris Collins and bubbled, “I owe a lot to you guys. I love you guys.”

Then he thanked Cherokee Parks for rooming with him the previous night and getting him properly psyched for his toe-to-tow with Robinson.

“Cherokee would keep calling out, ‘Big Dog! Big Dog!’ and each time I would jump up and do slides across the hotel room,” Hill said, giggling at the recollection.

Later, in the Duke locker room, he grabbed Lang, who had helped out on what Hill called “Robinson Awareness Night,” and squealed, “Hey, Stacey Augmon! Spider Man! Elastic Man! You got yourself $2 million today! You just made your (draft day) party a whole lot nicer!”

Reporters crowded around Hill, asking him to rank this moment on his personal satisfaction meter. Finally, he had reached the Final Four on his own, with no assist from Laettner or Hurley. For once, he was the unquestioned leader of this Duke championship contender. He had made his mark, left an impression, silenced the NCAA’s premier shot maker in the defensive effort of a lifetime.

Yes, Hill said, his “biggest moment, the proudest, may have been this game.” Why? “Because when I got in foul trouble, I got to sit and see my teammates do so well.”

The proudest moment of Hill’s Duke career--and he spent it sitting on the bench?

“If they hadn’t played so well, probably a lot would have been written and said about us being inconsistent, about how Duke can’t win without Grant,” Hill said.

And we can’t be having any of that, can we?

Hill is as reserved as Laettner was self-serving, perhaps the quintessential Krzyzewski player. It’s not that Hill is without ego. He has an ego, a healthy one. Before his showdown against Robinson, Hill claimed that the only time he wasn’t sure he was the best player on the court was when he played against the Dream Team. But Hill guards it as tightly as he does most opponents, subjugating it for the cause, which is to win more NCAA basketball championships in a single career than any player not to have worn the letters U, C, L and A on his chest.

One more would give Hill, and fellow Duke seniors Lang and Marty Clark, three NCAA titles. That’s Alcindor territory. Wicks and Rowe country.

“We thought a lot about that this year, to put ourselves in that position,” Hill said. “If we can do that, it’ll be something I can look back on and feel really proud of, because it’s so tough to get here.

“People look at all the Final Fours Duke has been to and think it’s easy. It’s not. It’s a struggle.”

Especially with this Duke team, which had to break in an all-new backcourt after the graduation of Hurley and three-year starter Thomas Hill, which meant Hill, for the first time as a Blue Devil, would be operating without a safety net.

“No one really expected us to do too much,” Hill said. “I think back to Nov. 1, in Greensboro for orientation day, where all the players meet the press, so to speak, and I said I felt we were going to the Final Four. The media laughed. They said that was crazy.”

Twenty-seven victories later, Duke has arrived, precisely according to Hill’s schedule. And if he won’t come out and say it, longtime sidekick Lang will:

The reason is Hill.

“He’s the best player I’ve ever played with,” said Lang, who has kept company with several Duke jersey numbers now hanging from the Cameron rafters. “I think people take Grant for granted, for the simple fact that he’s played, if you want to say, in the shadow of great players. Yet still, without Grant, we wouldn’t have won any of these national championships.

“And Grant easily could go out there and average 30 points a game, plus a triple-double every game if he wanted to. I think since he’s such a team player, people don’t appreciate that. People want to see someone go out there and score 40 points. But that doesn’t mean a hill of beans without winning.”

So, if Lang had a vote, he’d give the Naismith and the Wooden awards to Hill over Robinson?

Lang stopped in his tracks.

“Ohhhh, I don’t know,” he replied, smiling sheepishly. “Um. I mean, I feel he is the best player, but you can’t argue with Glenn because Glenn has had a tremendous year. I mean, just having the chance to be able to play with Grant and the opportunity to play against Glenn Robinson, it’s unbelievable. I think there should be two awards, two Naismith awards. A tie.”

Across the Duke dressing room, Hill is wearing an award of a different kind around his neck, the net that has just been cut down by the 1994 Southeast Regional champions.

Nice necklace, someone says to Hill.

Hill nods. If there is one thing Hill has learned in his four years at Duke, it’s how to accessorize.

“Now I’m going to go to Charlotte,” he said, “and try to get some bracelets to go with it.”

* COLLEGE REPORT: C8