2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament: West Virginia vs Duke

Lost in the shadows of Butler's magical run to the NCAA national championship game is the fact that the Duke Blue Devils - for so long a colossus on the college basketball scene but then curiously relegated to the shadows - have re-emerged as the clear favorite to take home a national title. In one of the stranger narratives in the history of the sport, Mike Krzyzewski has coached an under-the-radar team to the final central stage of a most surprising season.

Past Duke teams lorded themselves over the rest of the college basketball world with an unmistakable swagger and competitive cockiness. The great Bobby Hurley-Christian Laettner-Brian Davis teams of the early 1990s, followed by the Jay Williams-Shane Battier-Carlos Boozer bunch in 2001, walked the court like kings and put all enemies under their feet.

This Duke team had its face handed to it on a silver platter by an enigmatic (and overseeded) Georgetown squad during the regular season, and got eviscerated by North Carolina State, the 11th-place team in the Atlantic Coast Conference. It took a long time for Duke to win its second true road game of the regular season; not until Feb. 6 did the Blue Devils prove that they could win in enemy territory more than once. Yes, center Brian Zoubek began to develop the ability to maintain his place on the floor by focusing on defense and rebounding, but Duke still had the look of a team that was vulnerable in the face of a hard-working opponent with good basketball intelligence, a bona fide offensive threat, and an ability to get on the glass.

In other words, a team like the West Virginia Mountaineers expertly coached by Bob Huggins and led by meal-ticket scorer Da'Sean Butler.

The Mountaineers are not a great shooting team or a high-scoring team, but they powered past mighty Kentucky in the East Regional final and seemed primed to give Duke the test the Blue Devils missed in a cushy South Region draw that helped Krzyzewski reach his 11th Final Four, second only to John Wooden. Most experts - even the ones who felt Duke had the advantage on Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis - felt that Devils-'Eers would be decided on the backboard in a relatively bruising and contentious clash.

That battle never materialized, because Duke - similar to its superb South Regional final against Baylor - decided to elevate its game at just the right time, propelled by the purposeful direction of a coach who is on the verge of making even more history in his storied career.

Duke's bigs - particularly Zoubek - once again won the battle of the backboard, and when the white-shirted Devils snapped up offensive rebounds (they corralled 10 in the game), they knew what to do with the ball: feed the shooters. Much as Lance Thomas fed his perimeter people to fuel Duke in last Sunday's win over Baylor, Zoubek instinctively pivoted and passed the pill after gobbling up a missed shot in the first half against West Virginia. On two separate occasions, Zoubek assisted on three-point field goals - one by Kyle Singler and one by Nolan Smith - as the Blue Devils raced to a 39-31 lead that felt larger in light of Duke's long-distance shooting prowess. The ACC champions missed four of their first five treys, but finished the first half 7 of 14 from 3-point land and developed a rhythm West Virginia needed to disrupt in the second half.

That never happened, and the expected white-knuckler turned into a beatdown instead.

Duke continued to outwork West Virginia for loose balls while Butler - Da'Sean Butler, not the Butler University team Duke will face on Monday - remained locked down in the face of the Blue Devils' determined defense. West Virginia's star hit six separate game-winning shots during the course of the season, but on Saturday, he hit only 2 of 8 shots before leaving due to a strained knee ligament with 8:59 left. In one of the most memorable scenes in Final Four history, Butler - his body wracked with pain - lay on the floor in the moments following his gruesome injury. Huggins came over, knelt over his star player, and cupped Butler's face with his hands, softly whispering words of support and encouragement. Huggins certainly won new fans with his heartfelt response to a beloved adopted son; the scene will be etched in the hearts of college basketball fans for a good long time to come.

Speaking of a lasting memory, that's what Mike Krzyzewski is on the verge of doing at Duke. With one more win on Monday night in the national championship game against Butler University, Coach K will win his fourth national championship, tying him with Kentucky's Adolph Rupp for second on the all-time list behind John Wooden. More precisely, Krzyzewski would also join Rupp and Wooden as one of only three coaches to win at least four national titles at one school. North Carolina and Indiana have both won five national titles, but with more than one coach. Duke, then, could claim a special place in the college basketball pantheon if it managed to bounce Butler at 9:21 p.m. Eastern time on Monday night.

NCAA Tournament Final 4 Recap - West Virginia vs Duke