Chansky's Notebook: Rally Or Meltdown?

The face of a champion and the face of a choker.

You can watch basketball for the rest of your God-given life and likely never see anything close to what happened in the Duke-Louisville game Tuesday night.

The greatest second-half comeback in Mike Krzyzewski’s Hall of Fame career could never have happened without the Cardinals looking at the face of a championship program and all-out gagging. Once the Duke rally began with defense, Louisville completely and inexplicably collapsed.

You might say that a comeback from 23 points down with 10 minutes to play will make Coach K’s juggernaut invincible, but in some strange way it may provide a false sense of confidence. That’s how panic stricken became an opponent that had out played Duke, basically blown out Duke, for 30 minutes.

After chipping the deficit down to a dozen points thanks to a rash of rushed shots and turnovers by Louisville, the Blue Devils became unstoppable on both ends of the court with a defense that forced the home team to literally forget how to play in front of stunned crowd, to pick up its dribble when being pressed and almost refuse to look at the basket.

In the face of folding like a cheap tent, the Cardinals almost got the one bucket to hold on. But after sinking a three-pointer from the corner and making a stop on the other end, the rebounder slipped on a wet spot and lost the ball back to Duke for an uncontested layup that kept the comeback alive.

The team that had been scoring from all over the court was suddenly petrified to shoot, almost as if the final result had become inevitable. By the end, Duke looked like it was having fun with a bad high school junior varsity, which could not pass, dribble or shoot.

Finally, it was a two-score game at the under 4-minute timeout. The Dukies no longer had to press or foul, just play defense because they knew they were getting the ball back in a matter of seconds after Louisville’s next panic attack.

Every shot they took, whether a Reddish bomb from NBA range or Zion bulling to the basket, the ball was going in. No doubt about it. The champs and the chokers had shown their true colors that will be branded into each program forever.

Remember when? Whatever happens for the rest of this season or the next or the next, Duke will always have Louisville.

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Chansky’s Notebook: Rally Or Meltdown?

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