Give him 37 instead.

Duke’s defensive wizard tallied a record-setting eight blocks in the Blue Devils’ 69-64 win over Kansas in the second round of the NCAATournament. Battier’s career-high eight rejections were the most ever by a Kansas opponent and tied for second most in an East Regional game. It also was the third highest effort in first- and second-round history.

“Just good, ol’ fashioned defense,”Battier said simply. “When you get to the tournament, teams don’t know your tendencies all the time. So something that may not be as effective in the ACCall the sudden becomes a lot more effective in the tournament. They didn’t think I was a great shot blocker, so they took it to me. I took that challenge and blocked some shots.”

Kansas may not have scored on every shot Battier denied, but the Jayhawks lost a lot of good looks to the 6-foot-8 junior forward. He turned away a Nick Bradford layup on the fast break early in the first half. Jeff Boschee’s 3-point attempt met a similar fate, as did two putbacks.

Battier had four blocks by halftime, but Duke’s scoring leader also had just four shots at halftime and he’d converted on only one of them. Battier connected on better than 50 percent of his field-goal attempts during the season, but shot 4-for-12 against Lamar in the first round of the NCAATournament and 3-for-8 in the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament final against Maryland.

He did most of his damage Sunday from the free-throw line, where he was 6-for-7 in the first half and 10-for-11 overall.

“Good players have to find ways to score. If I were just a jump-shooter, my whole game would go if my jump shot goes, and lately it hasn’t been falling,”Battier said. “I took it upon myself to find different ways to score, to influence the game.”

In the second half, the inevitable happened. Battier’s great defensive game got the offense untracked. Over a three-minute stretch of the second half, Battier scored eight straight Duke points and put the Devils up 59-50, their biggest lead of the game.

Kansas roared back to a 59-all tie, then took a 65-64 lead with 1:18 to play. During the ensuing timeout, the BlueDevils mapped out their game-winning strategy. Defense, not offense.

“The way to win those type of ball games is to put together consecutive defensive stops,”Battier said. “It gives your offense a lot more confidence and it demoralizes the other team. We knew we weren’t going to win the game by shooting jump shots. It was up to everyone to come together and play defense.”

That’s exactly what happened. After he tipped in the go-ahead score, Duke freshman Carlos Boozer stole the Jayhawks’ inbounds pass and Chris Carrawell hit two free throws to put Duke up 67-64.

Kansas’ shot at the tying 3-pointer was met for sophomore Jeff Boschee, but Battier stepped out and nearly had his ninth block. Instead, Boschee passed off to freshman Kirk Hinrich, whose shot fell short.