Duke has McDonald’s All-Americans. So does UCLA.
Duke has national titles. UCLA has more.
Teams get up to play Duke. They do the same against UCLA.
Duke lost three superstars from last year. So did UCLA.
Duke has Mike Krzyzewski, the can-do-no-wrong demigod, the man
with a home court named after him.
UCLA has Steve Lavin, eternally on the hot seat.
And that’s where the comparisons become contrasts.
Duke pummels early-season opponents. UCLA lost to teams like
Northridge and Pepperdine early on in past years.
While Krzyzewski’s teams are often already in fifth gear
by early December, Lavin’s teams are usually stuck in
first.
So as the No. 15 Bruins (0-1) and No. 6 Blue Devils (2-0) lock
up Saturday at the Wooden Tradition in Indianapolis, why is it that
the differences are more apparent than the similarities?
“They’re definitely doing something right,”
sophomore guard Cedric Bozeman said. “They have a great
program and are used to winning. Every program wants to model
itself after theirs.”
So what’s going on at UCLA?
“We have so much talent, it’s hard to imagine we
have to bring it every day,” junior Jon Crispin said.
“Duke, the teams they should beat by 30, they beat by 50, and
the teams they should beat by 10, they beat by 20.”
So it comes as little surprise that, at this young stage of the
season, most expect little out of Lavin’s Bruins ““
especially against Krzyzewki’s like-clockwork Blue
Devils.
Including Lavin.
Throughout Monday’s press conference, the Bruin headman
kept trying to keep the focus of conversation on Tuesday
night’s San Diego game. But, as it happens when two
basketball titans go at it, the subject kept coming back to
Duke.
“On offense against Duke, they put such great pressure on
you,” Lavin said. “But you can’t start running
around like a hamster, bouncing the ball off your feet, or else
they’ll go on a 20-0 blitz.”
It’s just a creative way for Lavin to say that he expects
Bozeman to remain calm and to not get overwhelmed at the point.
Lavin knows it will be no easy task, especially since Bozeman is
likely to see Chris Duhon, Dahntay Jones and Daniel Ewing all
competently handle the ball at different times.
“Like us, they have new kids, but their guards started
30-plus games last year and they have three guys who run the point
and transition, and they’re all back,” Lavin said.
Bozeman, Lavin explained, has had a tougher time finding his
game groove, especially after sitting out a month of last season
with a knee injury. He’ll also be without the help of Ryan
Walcott, who must sit out the game to finish out a two-game
suspension.
And he said the Bruins are less likely to be in the same kind of
shape as Duke, who played seven exhibition games overseas in August
in London.
But while Lavin talks about taking a long view with his team,
promising it will be better come March, Duke just wins. Exhibition
games. Regular-season games. It doesn’t matter.
Jones was asked what would happen if Duke did the unthinkable
and lost an exhibition game.
“They wouldn’t be too happy, but they would still be
supportive,” Jones said. “There wouldn’t be
any outrage, because it is still the beginning of the season.
Exhibition games don’t mean anything.”
The Bruins couldn’t agree more. And if there is any
program that can’t be counted out of a challenge like Duke,
even after two completely uninspiring exhibition performances, it
is UCLA.
“I’ve seen us lose when we were supposed to win, and
win when we were supposed to lose,” said junior T.J.
Cummings, who had narrowed his choice of schools down to UCLA and
Duke before deciding to come to Westwood. “I haven’t
known it any other way.”
Duke has.