Real Bracket Busters

The teams track down time, work for more moments, pursuing that goal that always remains just beyond reach: the future.

That’s all anyone seeks from the NCAA tournament. The chance to get in, the opportunity to move on.

The cold reality is that time always comes to a halt for teams seeded No. 16 in the first round. No 16th-seeded team has ever beaten a No. 1 since the current tournament format came into use in 1985.

But it seemed as if Delaware State was the team that gained something from this first-round game Friday night, even though the Hornets, true to form, lost to Duke, 57-46.

Delaware State won over the crowd at the Charlotte Coliseum, briefly raised eyebrows through scoreboard tickers across the country and exposed the flaws of the Blue Devils, the top-seeded team in the Austin regional.

Although the Hornets couldn’t break free from the pattern of the past, they made history the moment they stepped on the court: It was the school’s first NCAA tournament appearance.

“We feel like we gained some respect or whatever,” Terrance Hunter said. “We still wanted to win the basketball game.”

They were tied 15 minutes into the game as Delaware State Coach Greg Jackson found a way to play Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, one of the all-time tournament greats, to a draw.

Normally Krzyzewski’s peers are the elite, the coaches whose names are found on awards and buildings. And yet, in the moments after he secured his 65th tournament victory to tie Dean Smith for the all-time record, he was honoring Delaware State’s players, tapping them on their heart as they passed in the postgame greeting line.

“It’s their moment,” Krzyzewski said. “Duke or Delaware State, you should never assume it’s your birthright to be in this great tournament.”

It’s a sobering reminder when a man who has coached 82 games in the tournament and made 10 trips to the Final Four can’t take it for granted.

This victory was far from a sure thing.

Duke just couldn’t keep up with the Hornets at full speed. Despite Delaware State’s superior quickness at every position, Duke stubbornly insisted on picking up the Hornets all over the court in man-to-man defense -- with forward Shavlik Randolph even daring Delaware State’s Tracey Worley to “come on!” and try hip.

So Delaware State spread the floor and let each man get a crack at going to the hoop. (Worley responded to Randolph’s challenge by angling for a pull-up jumper that went in to bring the Hornets to within two points.)

They tied it on a layup by Worley with five minutes left in the half. But the Hornets didn’t score again until one minute into the second half, then hit another drought that lasted until there was 11:13 left in the game. Even though they could get to the basket almost at will, they missed too many layups and weren’t granted many trips to the free-throw line: Duke shot 29 free throws to Delaware State’s six.

The Hornets fell behind by 19, but rallied to cut the deficit to nine with 1:45 remaining before Duke’s Daniel Ewing made two free throws for the final margin.

“There’s no question, after this ballgame, we gave it our best shot,” Jackson said. “I thought the kids showed a lot of patience, they showed a lot of desire. They were able to hang around until the talent level [of Duke] took over.”

Delaware State had the affections of the locals, plus fans of North Carolina (Duke’s natural enemy) who stuck around after their Tar Heels defeated Oakland.

Some Delaware State alumni had set up a table in a downtown hotel lobby to recruit any interested fans who wanted to hop aboard the small (3,500 students), historically black college’s bandwagon.

They were a remarkable story, rebounding from a brutal early schedule that featured trips to Illinois, Arizona State, Texas El Paso, Marquette and Michigan State and left them with a 3-10 record one game into Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference play. But they rebounded to win 16 of 19, including a last-second shot in the conference tournament final against Hampton that clinched the NCAA bid.

“This is something you remember the rest of your life,” Hunter said. “It’s the first time in our history that our school was able to make the NCAA tournament, and we won the MEAC championship. So there’s a lot to take from this. It feels good to be a part of history. We fell a little short, but there’s a lot of good things that came out too.”

The quest for more time doesn’t stop. In June, Jackson’s 17-year-old son will undergo a risky cord blood transplant, involving frozen blood taken from his 4-year-old brother’s umbilical cord, to fight his chronic sickle cell anemia.

Jackson has said he draws inspiration from his son’s will to live. Which explains why, even after a season-ending defeat, he could look toward the future.

“I think we have the commitment at our university to get back here,” Jackson said. “We understand what it takes to get here. We played a tremendous early-season schedule, so we know exactly what it takes to play on this level. We just have to put some pieces to the puzzle, be committed to do it, and I think we can get back to this point.”

He was thinking of more. Hungering for more. It is the essence of the tournament.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com To read previous columns by Adande go to latimes.com/adande.