Heading into Friday’s first-round game, the Duke head coach wasn’t happy about his team’s 10:10 p.m. scheduled starting time. In his mind, the No. 1 team in the nation and the top team in the East Regional shouldn’t have to play into the wee hours of the morning.

Saturday afternoon, some 16 hours after his team topped Lamar 82-55, Krzyzewski let loose at his press conference at Lawrence JoelColiseum.

“It really is bad when we’re pulling up to our hotel at 2 a.m. If players were pulling up to their hotels at 2 a.m. normally, you guys would be writing stories about them,”Krzyzewski said. “‘Where the hell have these kids been? Where were you, it’s 2 o’clock in the morning?”’

Mock answers quickly followed his mock questions. Before long, laughter echoed throughout the room.

“‘I was doing a press conference. I was peeing in a bottle, they were testing,’”he said, referring to the drug testing random members of NCAAteams undergo in the tourney. “‘Who’s testing at 1 o’clock in the morning. Are you kidding me?’”

Krzyzewski even stuck up for the media affected by the late start time, although he quickly turned that into a joke as well.

“Our game didn’t even make the papers. Why were you doing the interviews? Are we all nuts?” he asked.“You guys were asking me questions yesterday, I’m answering them and you’re writing for a paper that’s not going to put your column in it. OK.”

Luckily the Blue Devils’ second-round game against Kansas today starts around 5 p.m.

n

encore performance: Like Kansas head coachRoy Williams, Krzyzewski found it hard to believe the Jayhawks got a No. 8 seed and a second-round matchup against a No. 1.

“I’m not blaming the people who do it. I think the people on the selection committee try to do the very best possible job they can,”Krzyzewski said. “Not all of them are basketball people. They may like basketball and have the highest level of integrity, but they’re not basketball people and all of them don’t have their finger on the pulse of the game.

“When coaches make remarks about it, we’re not calling them stupid. We’re saying that maybe we have a better feel for it,”he added. “We can tell you that Kansas is not an eight seed. Somebody says, ‘What do you think about Kansas, do you think they’re an eight seed?’

“Go splash your face, get a drink of water, we’ll talk later,”said a smiling Krzyzewski. “It’s obvious that you’re not awake yet.”

n

open mic night: Williams offered a gem as well when asked if his Jayhawks were tired after needing overtime in Friday’s 81-77 win over DePaul.

“Timeouts are so dag-gum long once you get into the Tournament, stamina is not a problem,”Williams said. “The timeouts are so long it’s almost like you could take a siesta. If the hot tub were close enough, we’d all go in the hot tub.”

n

duke’s achilles heel? So what if his Lamar team lost by 27 points to Duke. Cardinals head coach Mike Deane, while full of praise for the Blue Devils, had no problem pointing out a weakness.

“The one thing that Duke is not is a real physical club. They’re a finesse team and they have tremendous skill, but with the exception of the big fella inside, Carlos (Boozer), they really don’t have a real physical presence in there,”Deane said. “They have some taller guys, but not a guy that’s real rough. They didn’t get through screens better than anyone else we played this year (in the Southland Conference).

“I think it’ll be interesting to see how far their skill will take them or, if they run into a team that’s real physical, if it’ll cause them some problems.”

Boozer is the biggest BlueDevil at 6-foot-9, 260 pounds. The other forwards on the squad are built more like Shane Battier, a 3-point threat and slasher who stands 6-8 and a more athletic 215 pounds.

“One of the learning processes for me and maybe Shane is playing more physical this year,”Boozer said. “Since we lost Elton Brand, that’s what teams are looking at, to go inside and dominate us. It’s a challenge to us to play more physical and more aggressive.”

While this may be good news for teams trying to knock off the BlueDevils, Kansas isn’t likely to be able to take advantage. The Jayhawks are built more like Battier than Boozer.

“We so have size when you go up, but we don’t have the bulk,”Williams said of his team’s tall, lean big men. “I don’t know that we can beat them up any more than they’re going to beat us up.”

n

NICETOSEEYOUAGAIN: Today’s Kansas-Duke matchup will showcase some of the most talented freshmen in the nation.

Duke stars Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy Jr., Casey Sanders, Nick Horvath and Boozer spent the latter parts of their amazing high school careers playing in all-star games with Jayhawks Nick Collison, Drew Gooden and Kirk Hinrich.

They nearly became teammates in college, too. Collison’s final two choices were Kansas and Duke before deciding to play closer to his Iowa Falls, Iowa, home. Gooden narrowed the field to Kansas, Duke and Connecticut, but didn’t make any more visits after a trip to Lawrence, Kan.

“It’s going to be fun to get out there and play with them, but I think we’re all totally different players from the beginning of the year to now,”Jason Williams said. “We’re friends, but when you’re out there battling on the court it’s a whole different story.”

Which freshmen have the better games could determine the outcome. Williams scores 15 points a game, while Boozer andDunleavy each average better than 10. Gooden and Collison both score right at 10 points a game for Kansas. All concerned play major roles in their teams’ success.

“They’re real talented, but I think it’s a pretty even match,”Collison said of the rookie showdown. “Our freshmen play a little different role than Duke’s. At times we haven’t had the older guys step up like Duke has, so we’ve had to play a little bigger role.”

Now that the freshmen have played an entire season, neither coach is overly concerned about their inexperience.

“If you have one or two guys who have been through it and can provide the leadership for the younger guys, I think it is overrated,”Roy Williams said. “For us, Nick Bradford does a fantastic job. For Duke,Chris Carrawell, Shane Battier — Shane Battier may be as good a leader as I’ve ever seen in college basketball.”

n