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The Daily Buzz Wildcats bean all they can be after Edgerson's tale
Updated: Sunday April 01, 2001 3:18 PM By Tim Crothers, Sports Illustrated MINNEAPOLIS -- Late on the eve of the Final Four, Arizona senior Eugene Edgerson called a meeting of Wildcats players in his Minneapolis hotel room. At that meeting, he read an e-mail he had received from a close friend which related the story of a father and his daughter who was frustrated with her lot in life. Edgerson told his teammates how the father changed his daughter's attitude. He put three pots of boiling water on a stove and then he placed an egg in one pot, a carrot in the next, and a coffee bean in the third pot. The carrot reacted to the heat by softening. The egg remained hard on its outer shell, but stayed soft on the inside. The coffee bean became more potent and more powerful. (Or so the story goes.) When he'd finished his fable, Edgerson looked around the hotel room and asked, "Are we going to be the carrot? Are we going to be the egg? Or are we going to be the damn coffee bean?" It was a particularly appropriate story for a team often accused of playing too soft this season. Holding a 32-20 halftime lead, Arizona suddenly mowed down Michigan State with a 14-0 run to open the second half on its way to a 80-61 blowout. Wildcat coaches chalked up the decisive run to a halftime adjustment in its zone defense which pushed the Arizona big men further out toward the perimeter and slid the guards deeper into the zone where they could flash into passing lanes and convert steals into lay-ups. "Yeah, I think our zone really confused them at times," Edgerson said. "But, more importantly, we all played like a bunch of coffee beans out there."
Unfamiliar territory for DukeAfter Duke rallied from 22 points down to defeat Maryland 95-84 on Saturday night, Blue Devils historians figured out that the last time Duke trailed by 22 points in any game was at the end of a 100-77 loss at UCLA on Feb. 26, 1995, toward the end of a forgettable season when head coach Mike Krzyzewski left the team for back surgery. Therefore, these were uncharted waters for all of these Blue Devils. "We were a little shell-shocked when Maryland jumped out on us so quickly," senior Nate James admitted. "None of us had ever experienced anything quite like that before." Duke hasn't dug a hole even close to that deep all season, but when his team has struggled, Krzyzewski has made it a point of pride not to call a timeout, a theory originally employed by legendary UCLA head coach John Wooden. In fact, several times this season Duke has reviewed a game film and heard a broadcaster scream for Krzyzewski to call a timeout only to snicker as they quickly rebounded without one. However, with Duke trailing 23-10 with 12:09 remaining in the first half on Saturday, Krzyzewski called a timeout to stop a opponent's run for the first time all season. "Typically when teams make a run on us at some point, we hit a breaking point that we get indignant and start to play harder," junior Matt Christensen says. "This was a different magnitude. We needed it this time." During each timeout for the rest of the first half and also during halftime, Krzyzewski emphasized how his team had to fight harder for loose balls and play tougher defense since Duke's shots weren't falling. He also told his team not to panic, just to reel in the Terps gradually and Duke eventually erased an 11-point halftime deficit, the largest ever overcome in an NCAA semifinal game. "That may be the worst opening eight minutes we've played all season," said Carlos Boozer, who scored 19 points. "But we've played our best this season when we're faced with adversity and for the last 27 minutes, we played as well as we have all season." During that span, Duke outscored Maryland 78-45.
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