Duhon shines for Duke

PHILADELPHIA— There’s just something about nylon that drives Chris Duhon wild.

For the second time this month, Duhon strolled into the Duke locker room without a care in the world, pleased as punch to be wearing a net around his neck.

The first time, at the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament, he got some grief about it from his teammates.

Freshmen, after all, aren’t supposed to have perks like that.

After Duhon drained three shots from the 3-point arc and scored 13 points to help the Devils along to the Final Four, there were no complaints.

“As long as he hits big shots like that, he can wear anything he wants,”senior Shane Battier said after Duke’s 79-69 victory over Southern Cal in the East Region championship game Saturday night.

“We were trying to talk to him about that before, like, you haven’t really paid your dues,”point guard Jason Williams said. “But hey, he played a great game today and he deserves it.”

Williams wrapped his freshman protege in a bear hug at half court when the final buzzer sounded from the First Union Center.

So did Battier. And head coach Mike Krzyzewski.

“After the game when Coach came and embraced me, he said, ‘Chris, you hit some huge shots,’ ” said Duhon, who didn’t realize how huge until that moment. “Just thinking back on it, I mean, yeah, I did. It’s kind of amazing.”

Battier and Williams provided all the offense in the first half against USC. The Duke superstars combined for 33 of their team’s 43 points and took 21 of 29 shots.

Forward Mike Dunleavy had added five points. Duhon and Nate James each tallied a single bucket. Southern Cal took note of that at halftime and made a few adjustments.

“We felt that two players could beat you on the team, and that was Battier and Williams,”USC head coach Henry Bibby said. “You play with statistics. We went with the percentages of Duhon making some shots.”

The Trojan defense shifted from a normal zone into a roaming double team of Williams and Battier, and it worked.

Williams missed nine straight shots during a long stretch, and Battier couldn’t connect in the low post after the added attention.

Southern Cal pulled within 48-45 with 15:07 left in the game when Williams finally shook himself loose for a 3. The defensive circle around him tightened, so the next time down the floor, he found Duhon behind the arc.

Nothing but net for a nine-point edge.

“I knew they were going to start double-teaming me,”Williams said. “A lot of people have been saying it’s just been Shane and I, but our team’s so dangerous with the different kind of weapons we can throw at you.”

Nearly 10 minutes later, with USC still hanging around down 67-59, Duhon slipped open off an inbounds play and drilled another 3-pointer.

Then, with only three minutes remaining and Duke up 72-64, Williams passed out of a double team and Duhon delivered again to put his squad up nine points.

“I saw my guy (guard Jeff Trepagnier): He’d look at me and he’d look at his coach and he’d start creeping over to Jason,”Duhon said. “My teammates did a great job of finding me. Once I knocked the first one down, a lot of confidence flowed through my blood.”

And once the shots started flowing, too, the Trojans’ hopes were dead.

“We were going to make somebody else beat us,” USC guard Brandon Granville said. “We started helping off of him, Jeff was rotating to everybody trying to help. He hit two big shots toward the end that really put them over the top.”

Added Trepagnier: “It really came back and bit us.”

After the Blue Devils finished with their half-court hugs, it was time for the serious business to commence. The first net went strand by strand, with every player getting to snip off a piece.

The jubilant procession then made its way to the other end of the court, but the crew with the ladder was slow in coming, so Duhon improvised. He got a lift from big men Carlos Boozer and Matt Christensen and started cutting to his heart’s content.

“I didn’t know I was going to cut them all off by myself,”Duhon said.“I was just trying to go as quickly as possible before those two guys dropped me.”

And once he did the damage with the scissors, he figured his teammates owed him one for the damage he’d done on the court.

The net was his.

“You’ve got to work around the rules sometimes,”he said with a big smile. “I’ve got some connections in here.”

n

Sportswriter Steve Hanf is covering Duke in the NCAA Tournament.