March magnets: Duke and Connecticut rarely cross paths, but when they get drawn together, count on a full-scale clash with full-blown consequences

Sporting News, The, March 24, 2006 by Mike DeCourcy

Everyone in the building was more than 600 miles from North Carolina's Research Triangle and 34 days from the Final Four. Connecticut and Villanova were about to play a game the Huskies had to win to stay in the hunt for the Big East championship. So why once gentleman at UConn's Gampel Pavilion wearing a shirt that made a profane reference to Duke?

This is a most curious "rivalry," Connecticut vs. Duke. It's like a feud between 50 Cent and Yo-Yo Ma. Connecticut rules the Big East. Duke lords over the ACC. They hardly ever meet--and never by choice.

Since the Huskies and Blue Devils shard a Final Four floor in 1999 in St. Petersburg, Fla., they have stood as the dominant programs in college basketball. Duke has won one NCAA championship since (2001) and has reached another Final Four (2004); UConn has earned two titles (1999, 2004) and left tire tracks all over Duke on the way to both.

Still, the Huskies are in the position of wanting what the Devils have. "I think that for the UConn fans, they feel like they've got Duke coming out of their D'Ambrosio, who is the Huskies' play-by-play voice and a talk show host for Hartford's WTIC-AM. "I think they want UConn to beat Duke--and be loved like Duke."

For the 18 weeks of the 2005-06 regular season, only Duke and UConn held the No. 1 ranking in the polls. The earliest they can meet in the NCAA Tournament is the title game, which is how it is with these two--they don't play each other unless it's huge.

Four of their six games since 1990 have been in the NCAA Tournament. Three times, the winner wound up taking home the championship trophy. Eight current players competed in the 2004 semifinal matchup in San Antonio, which the Huskies won, 79-78.

"I don't think, certainly, the guys at Duke have forgotten about us," Huskies senior forward Denham Brown says. "And we haven't forgotten the hype that Duke gets. If we bump heads in the tournament, it's going to be a full-scale battle."

The 2003-04 Huskies provided coach Jim Calhoun with his second championship. If this team claims another, he will match the number won by Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, whom Calhoun calls "the coach of our generation." That's no small incentive--and Calhoun has goaded and cajoled and pleaded with this team to reach its immense potential.

"My goal was to get us to he more than a team, but a program," Calhoun says. "I think we're edging toward that. Obviously, we can do a lot to cement that this year."

Duke's approach is different. Whereas UConn has become the dominant program in the Big East--working to fend off periodic challenges from Syracuse, Pittsburgh and, this year, Villanova--the Blue Devils do not need to look far to find a competitor to measure themselves against: reigning NCAA champ North Carolina.

"Most of the Duke fans' venom is directed at Carolina," says Adam Gold, the afternoon talk host at Raleigh's WRBZ-AM. "UConn is there, and they know about it. It's not quite the pink elephant in the room. It's sort of the pink bunny. They know it's there, but it doesn't slap them in the face every year, so why bother with it unless they have to?"

The Blue Devils are aware of the Huskies' extraordinary talent. "They could field an NBA team," Duke senior forward Lee Melchionni says. But Duke so often has been where it is now--this is its eighth No. 1 seed in the past nine years--that the identity of the competition becomes less an issue than simply continuing to advance.

"We don't compare ourselves to anybody else," Melchionni says. "We have standards within the Duke program, and that's what we try to live up to."

It seems somebody else does, too.

Tale of the tape: Devils vs. Huskies

All-time favorite Duke moment Christian Laettner's buzzer-beating jumper in overtime of 1990 East Region final.

All-time favorite UConn moment Khalid El-Amin's gutty, decisive drive with 1:05 left in the '99 NCAA title game.

McDonald's All Americans

Duke: 6

UConn: 1

Starters' average height

Duke: 6-5

UConn: 6-7

Top glass cleaner

Duke: Shelden Williams, 10.3 rpg

UConn: Josh Boone, 7.3 rpg

Team rejections

Duke: 179

UConn: 280

Top gun

Duke: J.J. Redick, 27.4 ppg

UConn: Rudy Gay, 15.3 ppg

2005-06 last-second heroics

Duke: Sean Dockery's halfcourt heave against Virginia Tech.

UConn: Denham Brown beats the buzzerand Gonzaga

Krzyzewski   Calhoun

     Final Fours

     10         2

   National titles

      3         2

  All-time victories

     751      730