In the narrow hallways of Cameron Indoor Stadium and in the spacious penthouse offices next door, the Duke regiment prepares for its next NCAA mission.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski relies on a basic weekend formula: Beat Purdue, beat Team X, go to the Final Four. He developed the plan's original elements on his first Final Four trip in 1986, before any current players were born.
The results are recorded on the sport's front page: More tournament games and wins than anyone; more titles (3) than everyone except John Wooden (10), Adolph Rupp (4) and Bobby Knight (3); more Final Fours (10) than everyone except Wooden (12) and Dean Smith (11); more Final Four victories (10) than everyone except Wooden (21).
Most purported experts and certifiable bracket creatures expect success in Houston, given the injury to Purdue's Robbie Hummel and the Baylor-St. Mary's half of the South draw. At Duke, steam now rises from several vents because outsiders either predict a smooth cruise or wonder if the team will stumble in a regional for the fourth time as a No. 1 seed since the last championship in 2001.
"It's never easy," Krzyzewski said. That was evident when top-ranked Duke teams dropped Sweet 16 games to Indiana in 2002 and LSU in 2006.
Focus and resolve
"No matter what, if it was that easy, then everybody would do it all the time," he said. "When people start throwing up what you haven't done, you might as well throw that up to everybody. A lot of people have never done anything -- go to the Sweet 16. You've got to just keep knocking at the door. You've got to keep striving to get there, and once you're there, you hope that you open the door and you're allowed to come in.
"The history of the time I've been here, the door has opened 10 times. That's a lot of times. We're hoping that we can win Friday and have an opportunity to play Sunday and hopefully knock the door down and get through there and have a chance to compete for the biggest prize in college basketball."
Late-blooming senior Brian Zoubek -- stung by successive losses in the first, second and third rounds -- draws confidence from a reliable, 63-year-old source.
"In those kinds of situations where we might not have as much experience, Coach does," Zoubek said. "So, we can look to him and look in his eyes, and he'll know what to do and he'll have that resolve and that poise."
Whether surrounded by squealing fans or blaring bands, Krzyzewski fixes his gaze on the fixed spot in the distance.
"I just don't follow the tournament," he said. "I have to follow it today more because I have my radio show, so you talk about it. I'm able to just really put it in a compartment and focus on it. Maybe getting older and forgetting and whatever you're doing as you get older helps in this case. It's easy for me not to look at anything else."
A need to ignore
Krzyzewski's natural self-discipline and West Point training tightened his concentration. So did an impromptu lesson from the late Chuck Daly, a former Duke assistant and title-winning NBA coach who headed the U.S. Olympics staff for the 1992 Dream Team.
Assistants Krzyzewski and P.J. Carlesimo, studious college types, started taking notes during Daly's first staff meeting.
"First of all," Daly said, "put away your paper and pen."
"No," Krzyzewski replied respectfully, "we have to have our paper and pen. That's a part of it."
Daly smiled and explained that it wasn't.
"I want you to do one thing," Daly said. "This will help you for the rest of your career. Ignore. The art of ignoring things that aren't that important will help us focus on the things that are."
Krzyzewski tunes out more stuff as time goes by. "I ignore criticism," he said. "I ignore praise. I don't ignore my family. I try not to; they probably think so. But you have to ignore. That's just part of it."
The bigger part of it -- winning -- is just more complicated.
lrawlings@wsjournal.com
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