Notes: Florida's speed tough to top

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WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- With 1:18 to play Sunday, Kansas swingman Nick Bradford nailed a foul shot to complete a three-point play that gave the Jayhawks their first lead since early in the second half of their second-round NCAA Tournament game. With that, the pressure turned up one more notch for Duke.

This only seemed to galvanize Duke's freshmen.

With so much at stake -- a No. 1 seed in the East, a season that proved naysayers wrong after the loss of four players from last year's team to the NBA -- the Blue Devils players found their steeliest nerves.

Somehow, Duke won a game 69-64 after shooting 2-for-17 from 3-point range and turning the ball over 23 times.

The Blue Devils had to be inventive, turning to freshmen Carlos Boozer and Jason Williams for crucial free throws and defensive stops in the final two minutes to secure a date with Florida next weekend in the Sweet 16.

Mike Krzyzewski called it a "big-time game." His counterpart, Kansas coach Roy Williams, left his home state of North Carolina red-eyed and bloodied.

Both coaches denied the heated words flying between them in shared air space during the first half, as they argued a possession dispute with an official, involved any hostilities between them.

But by that stage -- roughly eight minutes left before intermission -- it was clear this would have all the tension of a Final Four game.

All of which makes the cool hands of Boozer and Williams in the final two minutes more impressive.

Boozer hit two free throws with 1:57 left to give Duke a four-point lead, 63-59, before the Jayhawks' mini-run. He also had a tip-in with 53 seconds left to wipe out the lead Kansas established on Bradford's 3-point play.

The tip-in put the Blue Devils (29-4) ahead 65-64 and left Kansas to work a deliberate half-court rotation to regain the lead.

Boozer had other plans. He stepped in front of a Bradford pass from the point.

It was a steal that began the end of the 24-10 Jayhawks' run in the tournament.

Finally, Williams, the freshman point guard, didn't flinch about the kind of ugly statistical day (2-of-15 from the floor, eight turnovers) he was having when he went to the line with 2.2 seconds left and Duke nursing a three-point lead.

He needed to hit one free throw to make it a two-possession game for the Jayhawks. He hit both.

"We play at a high level of college basketball," Boozer said, "so we're not freshmen anymore. We looked in each other's eyes and knew we were going to get the job done. That gave us all confidence."

Krzyzewski always will argue that he knows his team best. Therefore, he was the first to contend Duke could be denied a Sweet 16 appearance.

That's why this will go down as one of the more gratifying victories of his 20-year career at Duke. His players came through tested, a little scarred and very much alive.

"To see Carlos hit two free throws and Jason hit two free throws (at the end), those are big accomplishments in a big-time game," Krzyzewski said. "You feel like every player and coach on the court understood what a great game this was.

"Playing against a team like that in this round is like playing a regional championship game. The level of play out there -- effort-wise -- was regional championship, Final Four. The reason was a high level of talent and kids motivated to win."

The Jayhawks knew they were living on borrowed time after they claimed an early 13-4 lead off freshman Kirk Hinrich's hot hand from 3-point range.

But the team that didn't really seem to come to life until it trailed DePaul by six points in overtime Friday night gave Duke everything it could handle.

"Our team grew up a lot after we got here," Roy Williams said. "The NCAA Tournament's not a fun thing for coaches. At the end, only one of them's going to be standing."

Any coach at this time of year will say that his freshmen are no longer freshmen, that they have most of an entire season behind them.

Realistically, though, the conditions here were severe enough to rattle most rookies.

None of them caved. Williams might have had terrible numbers, but Krzyzewski said his teammates often "left him out to dry." Hinrich, too, got off the shot he wanted when he attempted a 3-pointer with seven seconds left that would have tied it.

"It was a great look," Hinrich said. "I thought it was going in. You don't know bad I wanted to hit the shot, for all of my teammates. But it didn't happen that way."

Duke freshman Carlos Boozer made key plays when he had to, like this go-ahead basket in the final minute.(AP)

Duke will travel to the regional semifinal in Syracuse, N.Y., in no small part because of painstaking lessons the freshmen have absorbed from Krzyzewski's staff.

"You try to get them to see the game," said assistant coach Dave Henderson, part of Duke's 1986 Final Four team. "A lot of kids just play the game. But Coach K has done a great job of teaching the game, having an understanding of the game. That's what he did for us when we were players, and that's what we try to do to these guys.

"If you understand what's happening out on the court, that's a certain amount of maturity that you can carry into a game. These guys have been in big games all year long, so they understand game situations. I think that's really helped us. ... The mental preparation has been the biggest key for us all year long. It's believing we can overcome just about anything."

Second-round meetings don't get much better. This one left Duke even more prepared for what the next step will bring.

Junior Shane Battier, the team's grand philosopher and a contributor of eight blocked shots, put it best:

"We felt right at home in the end."