Really Blue Devils : Duke Faces UCLA Today Without Krzyzewski and With Little Chance Even for an NIT Bid

Welcome to the ghost town that used to be Krzyzewski-ville, U.S.A.: Five tents. Two of them partially collapsed. All of them deserted.

In the Duke glory days, which were as recent as last year, the area outside Cameron Indoor Stadium often resembled a campground at Yosemite on the Fourth of July. It was the country’s largest college slumber party, complete with Coach K springing for pizzas as the students sometimes camped out for days waiting for Cameron’s heavy wooden doors to be unlocked 90 minutes before tipoff. After all, first come, first sit at Duke games.

Now this. A few empty tents for last Wednesday night’s game against Florida State. No lines. No pepperoni and sausage pies. No mad rush past the lobby trophy cases to the bleacher seats. Worst of all, no Mike Krzyzewski.

If ever a dynasty was caught by surprise, this is the one. The program that has snipped more championship nets, won more games, spent more time in the top 25 rankings than any other team in the previous 10 seasons is fumbling for its air hose in the deep waters of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Before today’s game against UCLA, the Blue Devils are 12-14 overall, 2-12 in the ACC and in danger of finishing last or tied for last in the league standings for the first time since 1977. And you can pretty much forget about the program’s string of 10 consecutive bids to the NCAA tournament, previously known as the “Duke Invitational.” Unless it wins the conference tournament, Duke is doomed.

Even the NIT, which would donate a hospital wing for the chance at Duke, has privately told the Blue Devils a postseason invitation isn’t likely without a .500 record or better. With the No. 2-ranked Bruins today, No. 7 Maryland on Wednesday and No. 3 North Carolina on Saturday, the chances of a miracle finish are near zilch, especially since Duke is 3-7 against top-25 opponents.

“We’ve always been playing for the championship . . . things like that,” Duke assistant coach Tommy Amaker said. “Now we’re playing to survive.”

So frustrating is the collapse, senior center Erik Meek can’t find the words to explain the situation. Asked to pinpoint the reasons for a dynasty’s downfall, Meek is reduced to long silence, a shrug, an embarrassed smile.

“You don’t know,” he said. “You’re saying, ‘This doesn’t happen. This doesn’t happen at Duke.’ ”

Cherokee Parks, the team’s senior tri-captain and star center, also gives it a shot and somehow winds up on the fringes of proctology.

Some background: It was Parks who spent a miserable freshman season under the sneaker heel of Christian Laettner, who helped the Blue Devils win a national title that year but didn’t care whom he alienated in the process, including teammates. It also was Parks who later used some potty-mouth words to describe the talented, but ultra-demanding, Laettner. Needless to say, Parks counted the nanoseconds until Laettner departed campus.

Faced with the question--What’s worse: a season of Laettner hell, or a season of blown leads and mind-numbing defeats?--Dr. Parks attempted to do what Meek could not.

“With Christian, it was like you have to get an enema,” Parks said. “There has to be reason for it--you know that--but you don’t like it. But after it’s done, you’re like, ‘Damn, I’m glad I did that.’ ”

No danger of that in 1995. Compared to a 12-14 season, Laettner was a freshman’s best friend.

“This is worse,” he said. “After this year, I’m not going to look back and be happy about this.”

Parks, like everyone else, thought the Blue Devils would do what they usually do, which is win 20 or so games, challenge for the ACC championship, get an NCAA tournament invitation and make a run at their eighth Final Four appearance under Krzyzewski. They were young, what with freshmen Trajan Langdon, Ricky Price and Steve Wojciechowski expected to play lots of minutes. But they also had Parks, the All-American candidate, and Meek on the front line, and returning Final Four starting guards Jeff Capel, a sophomore, and Chris Collins, a junior, in the lineup.

“I thought we were going to have a great team,” Parks said.

So did the school’s sports publicity office, which happily distributed team posters that read, “History in the Making.”

“Little did we know,” Sports Information Director Mike Cragg said.

The Blue Devils made history, the kind that defies description. They became a living, breathing unsolved mystery.

The problems began during the off-season, when Krzyzewski canceled a team trip to Australia because several players were having academic difficulties. Next came the NBA courtship involving the Portland Trail Blazers and Krzyzewski. Krzyzewski stayed put but soon had to deal with the iffy academic status of Capel, who eventually got his grades in order, but showed up on the chubby side when workouts began.

It got worse. On the first day of practice, Collins broke his foot and senior forward Stan Brunson tore up his knee. About a week later, Krzyzewski, 47, who had battled lower back pain for months, underwent surgery to repair a displaced disk.

Two players and one head coach gone in less than a week.

Krzyzewski, against doctors orders, returned 10 days later. Meanwhile, forward Joey Beard, a prized recruit from a year earlier, announced his decision to transfer to Boston University. And just to make things more interesting, Price, who had begun to dazzle Duke coaches with his play, hurt his ankle in mid-December. He hasn’t been the same since.

Still, entering their early January schedule, the Blue Devils were ranked seventh nationally and had a 9-2 record, with their only losses coming to then-No. 16 Connecticut and unranked Iowa. But something was wrong. Duke assistant coach Mike Brey said he first noticed it when the Blue Devils lost to UConn and then beat Illinois, George Washington and Michigan.

“We talked about it as a staff,” he said. “We really thought we could be anywhere from 3-1 to 1-3. Maybe that’s where our confidence level was.”

Then came a Jan. 4 loss at home to Clemson, the same team picked to finish last in the preseason ACC poll. Not since 1984 had Clemson won at Cameron.

Two days later and with only 10 minutes left before the Blue Devils boarded a team bus for a trip to the Raleigh airport, Krzyzewski said he was returning to Duke University Hospital for more rest and back treatment. Longtime assistant Pete Gaudet, a former head coach at Army and now the staff’s designated restricted-earnings coach, would take Krzyzewski’s place on the sideline. It was the first time in his 20 years as a head coach that Krzyzewski would miss a game.

Shaken by the news, Duke lost to Georgia Tech. Then Wake Forest. Then it blew a 23-point second-half lead to Virginia at home and lost in double overtime. Then it lost to North Carolina State. Then Florida State.

“There’s blood in the water,” Brey said. “It’s a frenzy now. We go into places and they can’t wait to get their hands on us.”

On Jan. 22 came the shocker: Because of continuing back rehabilitation, Krzyzewski was through for the season. The rumors started shortly thereafter.

Krzyzewski had cancer. He was getting a divorce. He was addicted to painkillers. He had a mental breakdown. He had resigned. He had slugged Parks during a practice, was suspended by the university and would be fired at season’s end. He would return in time for the regular season finale against archrival North Carolina.

To clear the air, Krzyzewski has scheduled a news conference next Monday at Cameron. It will be his first media appearance since Jan. 5.

In the meantime, the Blue Devils struggle to salvage a season, or what’s left of it.

For Price, who went through five coaches in four years at St. Anthony High in Long Beach and Serra High in Gardena, the absence of Krzyzewski has been particularly unnerving. For nearly three months the three freshmen had depended on Krzyzewski for everything. Then . . . gone.

“We used Coach K as an energy pad,” Price said. “It got to the point where we really wore him out. The thing is, would it have been different if Coach K was here? I think so.”

Krzyzewski has done what he can. When the Blue Devils, playing their first game after Krzyzewski’s final announcement, returned to Durham after beating a mediocre Notre Dame team at South Bend, they found a handwritten message on the locker room board. It read:

1-0

Coach K

Former Duke stars such as Laettner, Grant Hill and Antonio Lang have called and tried to encourage the Blue Devils. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not.

There has been in-fighting, finger pointing and temper tantrums during this strange Duke season. Parks has been accused of not being a team leader. In Parks’ defense, Brey said the coaching staff never asked him to be one.

Lineup decisions have been second-guessed, including the time Collins’ father, Doug, a former NBA player and head coach, told the Blue Devil staff he was upset with Chris’ status as a substitute and would never return to Cameron for a game. And he hasn’t.

Enthusiasm has waned. Bad habits have appeared. To prove a point, the coaching staff showed the players a specially edited videotape that featured several Blue Devils staring into the crowd during huddles, jogging slowly to the sideline, failing to join a team huddle altogether, or sitting bored on the bench during play. And as a way to get everyone’s attention, a rare 9 p.m. workout was held recently. The Blue Devils practiced nothing but defense. Price later called it “hell.”

But that was then, this is now. As his health improves, there have been more Krzyzewski sightings at the Duke basketball offices in Cameron. He called a team meeting last week and later summoned Parks to his house for a private chat. As for those unity problems, Collins said the Blue Devils have since resolved their differences.

“I think we’re more together than we’ve ever been,” he said.

If nothing else, victories no longer are taken for granted.

And moments after last Wednesday’s 72-67 victory over Florida State, a beaming Collins leaped and grabbed hold of the orange rim as if it were precious metal. He dangled above the court for several seconds, cherishing the scene from 10 feet high.

“I’ve never done that,” he said. “But it’s been so long since I’ve felt that good after a win.”