A Sweet Return for Duke

This time it ended in a smile. And a grin. And a basketball held aloft like it was the Stanley Cup. And an ending that seemed awfully familiar.

Duke is back in the Sweet 16. Finally. Again.

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"For us, it's not about what other people feel or how other people feel how we should do in the tournament or anything," Duke guard Jon Scheyer said. "We have our expectations, obviously. For us with these guys right next to me, it feels really good to get this win."

There was a time when the Blue Devils advancing to the Sweet 16 was as much of a given as your brackets going bust and "One Shining Moment" bringing a little mistiness to your eyes. From 1998 to 2006, the Blue Devils advanced to the tournament's second weekend every year, marching three times to the Final Four and winning a national title in 2001.

But one look at Duke's Gerald Henderson grinning wildly and holding a basketball overhead like a championship boxing belt or Mike Krzyzewski letting a smile leak through his cast-iron post-game demeanor after the second-seeded Blue Devils' 74-69 victory over seventh-seed Texas, made it clear that that time has, at least for the moment, long since past.

That's crystal clear, just like the championship basketball awarded to the winner of the whole thing, something Duke remains alive for after the first weekend for the first time since 2006, following embarrassing exits in 2007 and 2008.

"I think our standards have been so high, because in the past we've had teams that won," Henderson said. "We're trying to uphold that standard.

"But the biggest thing is just to win."

And that Duke did, even if was with enough late drama to fill a week's worth of soap operas.

The Blue Devils took an 8-6 lead just over four minutes into the game, ran it out to a 10-point advantage on several occasions and wouldn't relinquish the advantage until a Varez Ward jumper with little more than a toe on the 3-point line knotted the score at 67 with 1:44 left.

And then these Blue Devils did something they've done oh so well in the last six weeks of the season and something last year's team, with a psyche so fragile it might as well have been manufactured by Swarovski, wouldn't have. They responded.

Kyle Singler flew in following a Henderson miss to put the Blue Devils back on top with a tip-in bucket. After Texas forward Gary Johnson scored for the Longhorns, Nolan Smith sank two free throws off a shooting foul to put Duke back up by a pair.

And while a heavy percentage of the crowd in Greensboro Coliseum, which also played host to North Carolina and its contingent of fans, began cheering loudly for Texas, someone upstairs seemed to take an interest in Duke.

At least judging by the bounces the Blue Devils got.

A Damion James 3-pointer that would've given the Longhorns a one-point advantage with 35 seconds left went all the way around the rim and dipped just below the iron before vaulting back out like it had been shot from an air gun. Trailing by three on its next possession, Texas missed two looks at the rim and watched as the ball tumbled towards the far right corner on the Longhorns end of the court. It seemed like it was rushing to catch a bus somewhere out of bounds, but Duke's Scheyer grabbed the ball and flipped it high into the Greensboro ceiling and some 60 feet back towards the Duke basket. Jockeying for position to grab the loose ball with 10 seconds left, Johnson fouled Elliot Williams and the game was all but over.

Krzyzewski had another word for Scheyer's play. Magic. As in Johnson.

"Those are plays that you thin k of Magic Johnson making and people just really smart making," said the Duke head coach, who won a 30th game of the season for the 11th time in his career. "You never thought I'd compare you to Magic Johnson right?"

Williams would miss both free throws, but the Blue Devils again found a way to put the ball back in their hands, getting a tip from nearly every player on the court before Henderson secured it and iced the game with a pair of free throws.

But while all those clutch plays will get cut and placed in the scrapbook – Scheyer's heave, Singler's tip-in, Elliot Williams' dash – what remains in the margins marks the Blue Devil's vulnerability.

As they've done all season, the Blue Devils had little trouble against a large frontcourt. Dexter Pittman, Texas' 6-foot-10, 300pound city block of a center, who emerged as a late-season force, scored just eight points and pulled down eight rebounds, limited to 22 minutes of action. And in the physical game, his head seemed to bounce off the floor almost as much as the basketball. The Blue Devil pressure on the perimeter made entry passes difficult and the combination of Zoubek, Lance Thomas and Singler handled the rebounding.

But Duke again struggled to stop penetration when Texas spread the court, a look it can be as confident to see in the Sweet 16 as Villanova's blue and white jerseys. Ward came off the bench to score a season-high 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting, picking his way through lanes as wide open as a grocery aisle.

Yet you'll excuse the Blue Devils if they focus on a poise they showed at the end of the game, another steely repeat of their 66-65 ACC tournament victory over Boston College, or the play of Brian Zoubek and Smith off the bench. Or perhaps they'll feel best about the way the team responded without Singler, who fouled out in the final minutes.

Or maybe they'll just take a few minutes to smile. And grin. And celebrate.

For the first time in three years, Duke is heading to a sweet ending.