Updated April 7, 2015 4:29 p.m. ET
Indianapolis
It was the night before the national championship when Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski decided to rethink the most critical part of his defensive game plan.
The original idea for Monday night’s title game here was that Duke would guard Wisconsin center Frank Kaminsky, college basketball’s national player of the year, with the shorter but more athletic wing Justise Winslow, who could keep up with chasing Kaminsky around the court. But then Krzyzewski changed his mind. He wanted Jahlil Okafor to guard Kaminsky.
The first time that Duke could practice this new strategy was at its walk-through on the morning of the game. That, as it turns out, wasn’t unusual for this Blue Devils team, which caused Krzyzewski to completely change the way his team practiced and prepared for games in the middle of this season.
It is exactly why Duke beat Wisconsin, 68-63, and the Blue Devils are now the national champions.
Krzyzewski, college basketball’s all-time winningest coach, likes to remind anyone who asks that every one of his teams is different. If he were still coaching the way he coached his title teams in 1991 and 1992—or even the ones in 2001 and 2010—then Krzyzewski wouldn’t still be coaching. How this Duke team won the title would’ve been unthinkable back then.
Duke had its season turned upside down in the middle of January, when transfers and dismissals stuck them with only eight scholarship players, four of whom were freshmen. Duke’s coaches realized that the only way they could eventually get to Monday night was to shake up the way they practiced.
This was the year that Duke stopped practicing as hard and as often and started practicing smarter than ever.
Duke’s roster of available players were those eight on scholarship, plus a transfer sitting out this season and two walk-ons. They barely had enough for a proper five-on-five scrimmage. Instead, they say, they stressed individual workouts, a plain game plan with team-specific tweaks and, more than anything else, letting some of the most gifted players in the country rely on their instincts. In other words: Duke’s coaches opted not to overcoach.
“When you don’t practice as much,” said Duke assistant coach Jon Scheyer, “in the game things might happen that you don’t script. That’s what happened to this team.”
Scheyer was a starter on the last Duke title team in 2010. It couldn’t have been any more different. That team started three seniors and two juniors who were still going at each other in NCAA tournament practices. “We didn’t have long, intense, grueling practices because we would have diminishing returns on that,” said assistant coach Nate James.
Krzyzewski had to simplify to win his fifth national championship. Instead of installing complex game plans in the days leading up to a game, for example, this year’s Duke team stuck to the basics and added in wrinkles in their morning walk-throughs, like the 2-3 zone that beat Louisville in January and the aggressive switches that did in Wisconsin in December and again Monday.
Duke, like most teams, tapers off as the season goes on to save energy. But the past title teams didn’t need formal practices as much for the exact opposite reason. They already knew what they were doing. “You could put in something and we’d pick it up in a second because we’d been through 130 scouting reports,” Scheyer said. “Coach and our staff were creative with this group. For them to be able to pick it up on the fly has been our trademark.”
This season, and especially this NCAA tournament, was Duke’s year of efficient thinking. “I’ve been here when we fought, literally, every day in practice,” Duke forward Amile Jefferson said. “This may not be as physical, but our guys were learning.”
The most significant strategic shift was Duke’s players enduring extensive individual workouts rather than running five on five in practice. There may be no one on the team—and, now, no one in college basketball—who benefited from that approach more than a guard who barely played named Grayson Allen.
Allen came into the tournament sounding more like a preppy clothing line than a Final Four folk hero. He was the forgotten one of Duke’s four freshmen, Tyus Jones, Jahlil Okafor and Winslow. There were games this season when Allen didn’t get off the bench.
But all season long, Duke’s coaches say, Allen was the last guy left in the gym after practice. His individual sessions were with Scheyer, who put Allen through a series of shooting drills every day that were designed to be competitive and simulate the game pressure he wasn’t getting.
“Grayson’s a gym rat,” James said. “He could stay in the gym all day and shoot.”
In a normal year, when Allen would have been the leading scorer on Duke’s second practice team, it is possible that he wouldn’t have been prepared to contribute in the national championship. Allen, though, was the player who saved Duke’s season. He poured in 16 points, including 10 in the second half, when he scored eight in a row for Duke after Wisconsin had taken a 48-39 lead.
Then it was time for Tyus Jones to take over. Okafor was the star of this team. Quinn Cook was the soul. Jones was the savior. His knack for hitting the biggest shots of the biggest games had won him a nickname before the NCAA tournament: “Tyus Stones.”
In the final five minutes of the season is when Krzyzewski’s last coaching lesson kicked in. It was a tip he had picked up as the U.S. national team’s coach in the last two Olympics. At a certain point, especially with this Duke team, the most coaching is the least coaching. “Coach has been unbelievable,” Scheyer said, “about putting them in a position to follow their instincts.”
Duke called for its most reliable play on its most important possession of the season. The Blue Devils were up, 63-58, with 1:54 left. So they gave the ball to Jones and let him dribble around for as long as it took for him to figure something out. That something was a 3-pointer from the top of the key that put Duke up, 66-58. The game was essentially over.
Jones backtracked down the court with a stunned look on his face. He had just hit the shot that had won a national championship. There was no way to script that.
Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com
Indianapolis
It was the night before the national championship when Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski decided to rethink the most critical part of his defensive game plan.
The original idea for Monday night’s title game here was that Duke would guard Wisconsin center Frank Kaminsky, college basketball’s national player of the year, with the shorter but more athletic wing Justise Winslow, who could keep up with chasing Kaminsky around the court. But then Krzyzewski changed his mind. He wanted Jahlil Okafor to guard Kaminsky.
The first time that Duke could practice this new strategy was at its walk-through on the morning of the game. That, as it turns out, wasn’t unusual for this Blue Devils team, which caused Krzyzewski to completely change the way his team practiced and prepared for games in the middle of this season.
It is exactly why Duke beat Wisconsin, 68-63, and the Blue Devils are now the national champions.
Krzyzewski, college basketball’s all-time winningest coach, likes to remind anyone who asks that every one of his teams is different. If he were still coaching the way he coached his title teams in 1991 and 1992—or even the ones in 2001 and 2010—then Krzyzewski wouldn’t still be coaching. How this Duke team won the title would’ve been unthinkable back then.
Duke had its season turned upside down in the middle of January, when transfers and dismissals stuck them with only eight scholarship players, four of whom were freshmen. Duke’s coaches realized that the only way they could eventually get to Monday night was to shake up the way they practiced.
This was the year that Duke stopped practicing as hard and as often and started practicing smarter than ever.
Duke’s roster of available players were those eight on scholarship, plus a transfer sitting out this season and two walk-ons. They barely had enough for a proper five-on-five scrimmage. Instead, they say, they stressed individual workouts, a plain game plan with team-specific tweaks and, more than anything else, letting some of the most gifted players in the country rely on their instincts. In other words: Duke’s coaches opted not to overcoach.
“When you don’t practice as much,” said Duke assistant coach Jon Scheyer, “in the game things might happen that you don’t script. That’s what happened to this team.”
Scheyer was a starter on the last Duke title team in 2010. It couldn’t have been any more different. That team started three seniors and two juniors who were still going at each other in NCAA tournament practices. “We didn’t have long, intense, grueling practices because we would have diminishing returns on that,” said assistant coach Nate James.
Krzyzewski had to simplify to win his fifth national championship. Instead of installing complex game plans in the days leading up to a game, for example, this year’s Duke team stuck to the basics and added in wrinkles in their morning walk-throughs, like the 2-3 zone that beat Louisville in January and the aggressive switches that did in Wisconsin in December and again Monday.
Duke, like most teams, tapers off as the season goes on to save energy. But the past title teams didn’t need formal practices as much for the exact opposite reason. They already knew what they were doing. “You could put in something and we’d pick it up in a second because we’d been through 130 scouting reports,” Scheyer said. “Coach and our staff were creative with this group. For them to be able to pick it up on the fly has been our trademark.”
This season, and especially this NCAA tournament, was Duke’s year of efficient thinking. “I’ve been here when we fought, literally, every day in practice,” Duke forward Amile Jefferson said. “This may not be as physical, but our guys were learning.”
The most significant strategic shift was Duke’s players enduring extensive individual workouts rather than running five on five in practice. There may be no one on the team—and, now, no one in college basketball—who benefited from that approach more than a guard who barely played named Grayson Allen.
Allen came into the tournament sounding more like a preppy clothing line than a Final Four folk hero. He was the forgotten one of Duke’s four freshmen, Tyus Jones, Jahlil Okafor and Winslow. There were games this season when Allen didn’t get off the bench.
But all season long, Duke’s coaches say, Allen was the last guy left in the gym after practice. His individual sessions were with Scheyer, who put Allen through a series of shooting drills every day that were designed to be competitive and simulate the game pressure he wasn’t getting.
“Grayson’s a gym rat,” James said. “He could stay in the gym all day and shoot.”
In a normal year, when Allen would have been the leading scorer on Duke’s second practice team, it is possible that he wouldn’t have been prepared to contribute in the national championship. Allen, though, was the player who saved Duke’s season. He poured in 16 points, including 10 in the second half, when he scored eight in a row for Duke after Wisconsin had taken a 48-39 lead.
Then it was time for Tyus Jones to take over. Okafor was the star of this team. Quinn Cook was the soul. Jones was the savior. His knack for hitting the biggest shots of the biggest games had won him a nickname before the NCAA tournament: “Tyus Stones.”
In the final five minutes of the season is when Krzyzewski’s last coaching lesson kicked in. It was a tip he had picked up as the U.S. national team’s coach in the last two Olympics. At a certain point, especially with this Duke team, the most coaching is the least coaching. “Coach has been unbelievable,” Scheyer said, “about putting them in a position to follow their instincts.”
Duke called for its most reliable play on its most important possession of the season. The Blue Devils were up, 63-58, with 1:54 left. So they gave the ball to Jones and let him dribble around for as long as it took for him to figure something out. That something was a 3-pointer from the top of the key that put Duke up, 66-58. The game was essentially over.
Jones backtracked down the court with a stunned look on his face. He had just hit the shot that had won a national championship. There was no way to script that.
Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com
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