Langdon Singing the Traveling Blues

The golf cart was waiting just outside the locker room. Mickie Krzyzewski, the coach’s wife, slid into the front seat, followed by Mike Krzyzewski himself, squeezing into what space remained, bad hip and all. Elton Brand and Trajan Langdon took the back seat, facing to the rear.

Off they went, bound for the interview room along the blue carpet leading down a hallway in Tropicana Field.

“Yeah,” Langdon would later say, “this whole night is going to seem long.”

Three photographers followed the Duke contingent, snapping away at the passengers in the back seat, even as Langdon did his best to hide without being rude.

“Truthfully,” he would also note about 20 minutes later, “you just want to be left alone. Because it’s very difficult.”

Losing in the NCAA championship game.

In the final game of your college career.

After being called for traveling with 5.4 seconds to play and your team down by a point.

And, for good measure, losing the ball about 40 feet from the basket as the last moments drained away, before getting a chance at the desperation three-point shot that could have forced overtime.

Langdon, the only senior of impact on a team that was heavily favored to win Monday night, deserved better, his teammates and his coaches would say.

One of college basketball’s best outside shooters had been there as a freshman in the 13-18 debacle of 1994-95, when Krzyzewski was forced out the final 19 games because of back problems and the entire Duke program endured a different kind of pain. He was there Monday night too, keeping the Blue Devils in the game by hitting five of 10 three-pointers and seven of 15 shots in all, only to suffer through again.

Connecticut 77, Duke 74.

“As I was walking off the court, it seemed like I had no emotion,” forward Shane Battier said. “It seemed like all the emotions had been drained from me. Like I was in a twilight zone.

“It was tough. As special as this season has been, we all really wanted it for Trajan. It’s like he’s our big brother. Knowing that it’s the last time he’ll play with us, it’s tough.”

Said Langdon: “It’s going to be very difficult. Obviously, it hasn’t set in yet. Over the next week, I’ll realize that I’m not at Duke anymore, not the captain, not leading a postseason workout.

“It was very difficult for me. The first thing you think about is, we could have won it. Then the realization comes, that this is the last time I’ll be with this group of players, these men. It was very difficult.”

The way it came about didn’t help.

Duke trailed, 75-74, and had the ball. Chris Carrawell got it to Langdon, far out on the left perimeter.

Langdon, being guarded by Ricky Moore, the Huskies’ best backcourt defender, started in. When he got near the lane, Langdon tried for a spin move to get free, but merely got into traffic and trouble.

He traveled.

When play resumed, Duke immediately fouled Khalid El-Amin, who made two free throws with 5.2 seconds remaining for a three-point Connecticut lead. The Blue Devils went back to Langdon, getting him the ball in the backcourt and letting him push it up for a last-gasp three-pointer.

Which never materialized. Langdon lost control of the ball far from the basket, then lost his balance. He was sprawled out on the court as the Huskies charged around in celebration.

“The ball was in our best player’s hands with an opportunity to win the game, and that’s how it should be,” Krzyzewski said.

Leading the last moment of a great career coming as a turnover, how it shouldn’t be. Leading, in turn, to an emotional Langdon behind closed doors in the locker room, before long a golf cart ride to the postgame interview room, before he begins the final trip back to Durham, N.C., and eventually the final official act as a Blue Devil.

“I’ll just tell them,” Langdon said of his teammates, “to try and get back here and win one for me.”