These Two Look Out for No. 1

The Duke Blue Devils try to steal a team’s heart and crush its will to fight, but they never got hold of Southwest Missouri State’s heart Friday.

The lead wasn’t 30 at halftime this time. It wasn’t 41 at game’s end, either.

Steve Alford’s Bears put up the best fight against Duke of any team so far in the tournament, trailing by six late in the first half and by nine at halftime before losing, 78-61, in the NCAA East Regional semifinals at Continental Airlines Arena.

The Blue Devils (35-1) came away with their 30th win in a row, a date with Temple on Sunday for a trip to the Final Four, and a cautionary tale.

“Those 41-point games were misleading,” forward Chris Carrawell said. “This is not going to be a joy ride. We’re not going to be up 30 at halftime. The last three games are not going to be that way.”

Southwest Missouri State (22-11) was bold enough to go toe-to-toe with Duke, pressing the Blue Devils at the outset and trying to beat them in transition.

And Duke--aware of its growing reputation for domination--tried to deliver a knockout blow with its first punch.

“Without a doubt, I thought we did put a lot of pressure on ourselves, trying to get the blowout right away. It took away our discipline,” said Duke point guard William Avery, who missed some long three-point attempts early and finished with 12 points after going an uncharacteristic four for 10. “We’ve got to get our focus back. We can’t worry about being up 30 or 40 points.”

Trajan Langdon bailed out the Blue Devils by making nine of 14 shots--including four of six three-pointers--to finish with 24 points.

“He always knocks down the shots,” said Duke center Elton Brand, who had 14 points, eight rebounds and blocked five shots. “He’s our leader out there. Without his steadiness, it would have been a lot closer.”

The Bears came away with a bittersweet finish to a marvelous run after upsetting teams from the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference--Wisconsin and Tennessee--before running headlong into Duke.

“We were a 12 seed. Nobody expected us to do this,” Southwest Missouri State guard William Fontleroy said.

It was a close game early that might have been closer if the Bears had made more shots. Fontleroy gave Duke trouble with his darting drives and finesse center Danny Moore got some open looks.

“It’s frustrating, because those are shots you knock down in practice and other games,” Fontleroy said. “Then, in probably the biggest game of your life, you don’t make them. There was one shot in the corner I was kind of shocked to get, and I rushed it too much.”

Still, the lead was never 20 until only 6 1/2 minutes remained, and Southwest Missouri State became the first team to hold Duke under 80 points since Kentucky on Dec. 22--a stretch of 23 games.

“I thought our guys did a really great job tonight,” said Alford, who is expected to leave shortly to become the coach at Iowa. “They had a great season. They gave it all they had, and they just got beat by a better basketball team.”

Krzyzewski, who had his private complaints with his team’s performance, had only praise for Alford’s team.

“I thought they played great,” Krzyzewski said. “Everybody’s been talking about their defense. They did play real good defense.

“What’s not said about Steve’s team is they run very good offense. The way they run motion, the touches they get per possession, and they don’t turn it over much.

“I’m not sure our kids understood how well this team plays together. I told them after the game, SMS collectively is better than individually.”

Duke, collectively and individually, is a terrific basketball team that showed its mortality Friday.

“Anything would have been a letdown,” Krzyzewski said. “We’ve been playing great basketball. Actually, unusually great basketball.

“We didn’t get loose balls. We seemed disjointed. All of a sudden it’s two points and four points.”

And at halftime, the Blue Devils heard about it.

“One of the things he said was, ‘Do you guys want to go home or do you want to continue? Pick it up, or you could lose,’ ” Carrawell said. “We’re not invincible.”

NCAA TOURNAMENT

FRIDAY

EAST

Duke 78, Southwest Missouri St. 61

Temple 77, Purdue 55

*

MIDWEST

Michigan St. 54, Oklahoma 46

Kentucky 58, Miami of Ohio 43

TODAY

WEST

Connecticut vs. Gonzaga

12:30 p.m., CBS

*

SOUTH

Ohio State vs. St. John’s

3 p.m., CBS