1 DUKE THE BLUE DEVILS ARE TALKING ABOUT WINNING ANOTHER NATIONAL TITLE NOW THAT THEY HAVE THE BEST FRESHMAN CLASS IN THE COUNTRY

Say this for Mike Krzyzewski: His Blue Devils don't do anything
halfway. First they reach seven Final Fours in nine years and
win consecutive NCAA titles in 1991 and '92. Then, in 1995, they
finish last in the ACC. Three seasons later Coach K is talking
about returning to the Final Four. It has been a remarkably fast
round-trip to basketball hell.

Krzyzewski, now the dean (lowercase) of ACC coaches, is
reinvigorated by the scent of the hunt, and he's not
soft-pedaling Duke's chances. "We're there," he says. "I know
you can get beat at any time, but I would rather have my team
know that, yes, we are capable of winning it all."

The Blue Devils surprised themselves last year by winning the
ACC regular-season championship. Krzyzewski conjured a
seven-game winning streak down the stretch by employing a
three-guard offense, some smoke and a mirror or two. The success
of that gimmicky lineup proved to be an illusion, though. Duke
had no inside game, as its minus-6.8 rebounding margin in league
games proved, and that was the Blue Devils' undoing in a 98-87
second-round loss to Providence in the NCAA tournament.

The inside game is no longer a problem, nor is the lack of depth
that forced guards Steve Wojciechowski and Trajan Langdon to
average 34 and 32 minutes, respectively, in ACC play. The
reason: Krzyzewski signed the best quartet of freshmen in the
nation--6'2" guard William Avery, 6'8" forward Shane Battier,
6'8" forward Elton Brand and 6'11" center Chris Burgess.

The freshman who has made the biggest impression since school
began is Brand, a 260-pound bruiser with arms longer than a
World Series game. "If I had Brand's arms, I could pick
something off the floor without bending over," says the 5'10"
Wojciechowski. Langdon has been impressed with Brand's game too.
"You wouldn't think somebody with hands that big would have a
touch like that," Langdon says. "From 10 to 12 feet, the basket
just swallows his shot."

That's high praise, coming from someone who made 44.5% of his
threes and 89.7% of his free throws last season. Langdon
averaged 14.3 points and made first-team All-ACC despite getting
off to a slow start while recuperating from knee surgery that
sidelined him for the 1995-96 season. Langdon, who says it will
be a few months before he fully regains the moves he had before
the injury, spent last summer hitting .189 for the Idaho Falls
Braves, San Diego's Class A affiliate. Three or four mornings a
week, he spent an hour working on shooting and defensive drills
at a local rec center. "It cost me $1.25 every time," he says.
"I couldn't get a deal with them."

Krzyzewski believes he can get more out of Langdon by playing
him less. "He shot 29% in our last six games," Coach K says.
This season, with a front line that will go seven deep when
senior Ricky Price returns from academic suspension next month,
Langdon no longer has to guard the opponents' best scorer,
regardless of size.

"I want to devise a defensive system that makes use of our
depth," Krzyzewski says. "We're going to be playing more
full-court basketball, especially defensively. We shot 135 more
three-pointers than anybody else in the league last year. I
don't think we'll shoot as many this year. Our defense will
create a style that lends itself to more exchanges, more
turnovers. Kind of like our teams in the early '90s, when we
hardly ever ran our half-court offense."

The style Krzyzewski has in mind depends a great deal on
Wojciechowski, who has few peers in pressuring the ball or
annoying opposing fans. "I like getting on people's nerves,"
Wojciechowski says. "Some guys can really shoot it. Some guys
are tremendous athletes. I'm a pest. You have to play to your
strength."

Krzyzewski will spend the first half of the season figuring out
who plays best with whom, and the second half gearing up for the
NCAAs. "I'm going to bring this team along like I brought some
of my old teams along," he says. "I couldn't do that for the
last two years. I just want us to know that we can compete at
that level. If I do that, we might win again. The whole thing.
Maybe more than once. I do believe the talent level is there."

--IVAN MAISEL

COLOR PHOTO: ROBERT BECK LANGDON WAS FIRST-TEAM ALL-ACC AND COULD BE EVEN BETTER THIS YEAR, THANKS TO THE BLUE DEVILS' NEW DEPTH [Trajan Langdon in game]

Returning Starters [Three]
Points per Game '96-97 79.7
PPG by All Returning Players 54.4