And that's where sophomore Mike Dunleavy came in Monday night, leading the 82-72 victory over Arizona at the Metrodome.

Coach K wipes away a tear after his team gives him his third national title.(AP)

Dunleavy drilled Arizona with 21 points, providing the difference with 18 second-half points, as Duke (35-4) finished the season with 10 consecutive victories to capture its third national championship.

"It was truly a great team effort and I love the fact that these kids won," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. "I've thoroughly loved coaching these kids. They've been so good, they've given me their hearts, their minds ... they're just a beautiful group of guys, they're just old-fashioned guys."

It went much as Krzyzewski had predicted Sunday, when he said he was looking for a secondary star to step up.

When the Wildcats held down Shane Battier and Jason Williams, it was Dunleavy ... and center Carlos Boozer (12 points, 13 rebounds) ... and off-guard Chris Duhon (9 points, 6 assists) ... and even backup Nate James (6 points) in relief of the foul-prone Williams.

Arizona's host of defenses -- from a switching man-to-man to an aggressive zone -- were designed to stop Duke's two All-Americans, but that eventually left Dunleavy open on the perimeter.

And the son of the Portland Trail Blazers coach made the Wildcats pay.

The boyish-looking 6-feet-8 sophomore was the deciding factor in this well-played, extremely competitive National Championship Game.

The teams went back and forth in the first half and the early going of the second half, with neither team gaining as much as a six-point lead.

Both teams were experiencing icy shooting nights from long range. Duke was making very few 3-pointers, and Arizona none at all.

That is, until Dunleavy started feeling it.

Dunleavy sank three consecutive 3-pointers that pushed a 40-37 Blue Devils lead to a 50-39 advantage. But Arizona calmly stuck to its game plan of winning this battle inside, and rode baskets by Michael Wright and Loren Woods to close the gap to 50-48 ... only to see Dunleavy score four more off a sweet pass from Duhon and a breakaway dunk off a steal.

Arizona scrapped back again, but on a night in which the shooting touch of its guards never arrived in the dome, the Wildcats never could get all the way back.

As a team, Arizona went just 4-for-22 from behind the arc -- which included an 0-for-12 performance by guards Jason Gardner and Gilbert Arenas.

Only Richard Jefferson, who made all four of the team's 3-point baskets, hit from long range for Arizona all night, but his 19 points and 22 inside from Woods were not enough to carry the Wildcats (28-8).

"When you talk about toughness, come on, Arizona is so tough," said Krzyzewski, whose program captured its first title since winning back-to-back championships in 1991-92. "I didn't realize how good they were until we started playing the game. I turned to (assistant coach) Johnny Dawkins and said, 'I knew they were good but they are better.' So beating them made it even more special."

It wasn't that Williams and Battier played poorly, it was just they came into the game averaging a combined 51.0 points and shooting 47.6 percent from the floor in the NCAA Tournament. They delivered in different ways and eventually poured in some offense late.

Battier had 11 rebounds while scoring 18 points. Williams finished with 16.

Fighting off a reputation for passiveness, Woods had all the heart, talent and determination necessary to lead Arizona. The lithe 7-1 senior center had 22 points, 11 rebounds and 4 blocks against the Blue Devils, who lack a true center.

That strategy, for the most part, worked. But it was Dunleavy's stretch of brilliance in the second half that got Duke out to a sizeable lead and forced Arizona to play catch-up by taking more perimeter shots than it wanted.

Jefferson, Woods, Dunleavy and Williams joined Final Four Most Outstanding Player Battier on the All-Final Four Team.

The first half was played at an up-and-down pace, but dominated by interior play. Arizona constantly tried to exploit is height advantage by feeding the ball to Woods, who had 13 first-half points.

Heading into the contest, Arizona said its big men would have an advantage over Duke's Boozer and Casey Sanders, and attempted to push the issue by sending the ball inside as often as possible.

Duke eventually took its first lead at 18-17 on the strength of Boozer converting down low and then scoring on a beautiful spinning drop step.

In the final minutes of the half Williams began heating up, including draining a soft 3-pointer from the wing. Proving his maturity on offense, he managed to score 11 points even when his shot wasn't falling; he got to the line, got a steal and fastbreak bucket, and drew a goaltending call against Jefferson.

Still, he drew a fourth foul early in the second half, and the Blue Devils were forced to go without him for extended periods.

It was astounding the way Duke could even stay close, much less hold the lead and stiff-arm the Wildcats through the second half despite Battier and Williams struggling on offense. The two players, after all, had accounted for nearly 60 percent of Duke's points in the first five NCAA Tournament games.

Williams was 1-for-10 from 3-point range when he left the game with his fourth foul at the 9:23 mark of the game. He had as many fouls as baskets (four) to go with two assists and three turnovers to that point ... yet, the Blue Devils led 61-52.

Arizona rallied again, once again behind Jefferson and Woods, closing back to within three.

Still, in crunch time, Williams and Battier were there.

Jefferson brought Arizona back to a three-point deficit with 2:49 remaining, but the Wildcats would never score again.

Battier was left alone on the baseline, and Williams zipped him a pass for a monster one-handed dunk and a 77-72 lead, with 2:19 to go.

And moments later, it was Williams who took a pass from Battier and drained a long 3-pointer to make it 80-72 with 1:43 remaining.

One-minute, forty-three seconds later, Krzyzewski's secondary stars were champions.