It was the audacity of it all that stood out, when the nets were cut and the trophy raised and the night crew came out with their brooms to sweep the floor for the last time.
Duke had set out to replace a legend, to manage a transition no one’s yet been able to manage, to carry the program across the threshold from one very long era into one very new one without losing its way.
On a Saturday night in the Greensboro Coliseum the Blue Devils not only won an ACC championship — something they’ve done 21 times before — but did something no one had ever done before.
It’s just one title, one step, not even an entire season let alone a string of them. There’s an NCAA tournament yet to be played, perhaps more history to be made, years ahead in an uncertain future, especially if the expected exodus occurs after the season, the usual cadre of newcomers arriving.
This much is certain at this point: The plan worked.
“It’s not crazy,” Duke guard Jeremy Roach said after Saturday’s 53-43 win over Virginia. “We pulled it off.”
A LEAP OF FAITH
We is the correct phrasing. This was not solely Scheyer but the university that entrusted him with the future of a program that has come to define a university as much as its academics. It was the staff that wanted to work with him, including a newcomer from way outside the family. It was the players who signed up for the challenge knowing Mike Krzyzewski would be gone, a leap of faith into the true unknown.