5 Duke

Chris Duhon came to Duke two years ago as a heralded recruit whose penetration skills were supposed to complement and enhance the explosive scoring talents of Jason Williams. Instead, Duhon became a nice role player who, by his own admission, spent too much time watching Williams and not enough time helping him. Now that Williams has taken his 21.3 points per game to the NBA, Duhon says he's ready to assume the leadership mantle—and for Duke's sake, he had better be. On a team that will depend heavily on six freshmen, Duhon (who's day-to-day with a sprained left wrist suffered in a preseason game last Thursday) is the closest thing the Blue Devils have to a known quantity. "I've spent the last two years being groomed to be the leader," he says. "This is definitely my team."

While Williams was often—perhaps too often—a one-man offense, Duhon is more of an orchestrator. That means Duke will also need big years from fifth-year swingman Dahntay Jones, the team's leading returning scorer, and guard Daniel Ewing, who was the Blue Devils' most accurate three-point shooter last year (45.7%).

In the end, though, Duke's fate will hinge on its freshmen, a group that includes four McDonald's All-Americans. Guards Sean Dockery and J.J. Redick will provide speed and outside shooting, respectively, off the bench, but the biggest impact will have to come from Shavlik Randolph and Shelden Williams. The 6'9", 255-pound Williams was, according to coach Mike Krzyzewski, the team's best rebounder during the first few weeks of practice. Randolph is the most skilled big man Duke has had since Christian Laettner.

The Blue Devils' youth will make Duhon's job that much more important. To drive home that point, the players elected him captain, and the junior has taken his role to heart: He made everyone work out at 5 a.m. one day because a player had missed a class, and on occasion he has booted teammates out of pickup games if they haven't performed to his standards. "Leadership is very exciting, but it's also very demanding," Krzyzewski says. "I told Chris not to worry about making mistakes. Just trust that good things will happen."

At Duke, they usually do.

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