INDIANAPOLIS -- The star freshman point guard and the phenom freshman center, best of friends since their early teen years, two guys who made a promise to each other to attend the same college before either one could drive a car, collapsed into each other's arms and had a moment to themselves in front of more than 71,000 people on Monday night.

Duke had just won its fifth national championship. Tyus Jones and Jahlil Okafor were enveloped, telling the other how much this moment meant and why they loved each other. Their bond forever has championship ties now, and what they accomplished may well not be repeated for decades.

"That's my best friend and my brother," Jones said. "We told each other in the ninth grade we wanted to come to college together and win the national championship. So to finally come all this way and to do that, we just hugged each other, told each other we loved each other and were just crying."

Without Okafor, Duke doesn't get a No. 1 seed this season and isn't one of the four best teams in the country. Without Jones, Duke doesn't have arguably the best point guard in the nation -- and the ability to come back and knock over mighty Wisconsin in the national title game, 68-63, giving Mike Krzyzewski a ring for his thumb.

Okafor and Jones, who won the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player award, got a good 10 seconds to themselves, confetti raindrops and streamers hitting the floor, before the rest of the team found them and dogpiled in euphoria.

Duke's Tyus Jones and Jahlil Okafor share a special bond. (Getty)
Duke's Tyus Jones and Jahlil Okafor share a special bond. (Getty)

As Duke celebrated near the far out-of-bounds line on one end of the floor, Wisconsin's players were either looking up at the floating confetti or down at the dirtying floor. Their incredible season would end in a loss for the second straight year at a Final Four, this year one game further -- but six points short of a championship. Player of the Year Frank Kaminsky was in a crouch, suddenly imposed by TV cameramen just feet from his face.

Fifty feet away, Justise Winslow was giving Grayson Allen a bear hug. Soon enough, Jones and his senior mentor, Quinn Cook, were encircled by cameras and cheerleaders in their next moment of coronation. After the nets had been clipped, the team was on the rostrum and Cook was openly bawling. His left arm was tightly wrapped around Krzyzewski, who was clenching one of those nets in his right fist.

"To have his arm around me and hugging me while we're watching 'One Shining Moment' was probably the best feeling in my life," Cook said.

Jones had Okafor's hands on his shoulders as he watched with raised eyebrows and closed lips, only finally letting out a gigantic grin when his clinching 3-point shot was shown as part of the montage.

After "One Shining Moment" was complete, Okafor, Winslow and Marshall Plumlee were tripping over each other in glee on the giddy stumble back to the locker room. Thirty seconds behind them, Krzyzewski turned the corner for the final 50-yard stride.

"Tyus was unbelievable," Mike said to Mickie, his wife of nearly 46 years.

"To just be a small part of it, I'm extremely honored and I owe everything to him," Jones said of his coach moments later.

But before that, he was slowly making his way back to join the team in the locker room. Cook was with him. They were crowing loudly about their national championship.

"THEY SAID WE COULDN'T DO IT!"

Quinn Cook was boasting in a shout. Jones was hollering happy cheers. Coming up behind them in a golf cart was Wisconsin's seniors, Frank Kaminsky and Josh Gasser, both sitting on the back of the cart with reddened eyes watching Cook and Jones celebrating as they were dragged backed to a depressed locker room.

Amid his yelps, Jones quickly noticed them both, ran up to catch them, and dipped under a rope to apologize.

"Hey, my fault, yo. I didn't see you," Jones said.

"It's all good. Congratulations," Kaminsky said, shaking Jones' hand.

The cart kept going to Wisconsin's locker room. Kaminsky got off and disappeared into the coaches' quarters. He didn't meet with the media in the locker room the rest of the night. Gasser stayed outside, waiting to be interviewed on the Big Ten Network. He was unable to keep from continually crying. As the cameras prepared to shoot live, post-loss, Gasser just kept staring in the direction of the Duke locker room. He could hear all of the hoots.

The doors were kept open.

***

The Duke players got together after their loss to Notre Dame in the ACC tournament and vowed to win the NCAA title. Duke won its third title here in the Circle City because of two guards three years apart who combined forces to create one of the best backcourts in program history.

"They had that chemistry right away," Krzyzewski said of this team's togetherness. "It's been an incredible group. I've never had a group that has had this chemistry and the brotherhood that this group has had."

Jones, an 18-year-old from Burnsville, Minn., put on one of the best freshman showings of any first-year player in a national title game in the past three decades. His game-high 23- point performance was also his most fruitful showing in the tournament.

"I just trusted Coach K and everyone on the staff with all my heart," Jones said. "I believed in everything that they told me."

Krzyzewski believed on Monday night his team was dead in the water. It was another freshman, Allen, who surprisingly pulled the team from the drink, pumped life into his group and took air out of a nine-point Wisconsin lead in the second half.

Jones was the deserving MOP, though. He played better on Monday than he did in his previous five NCAA Tournament games, the only five NCAA Tournament games he's likely to play in his career. No player in the country was in bigger moments more frequently than Jones, who turned himself into Duke's MVP over the past month.

"This is just my natural habitat, I guess," Jones said, offering up the understatement of the night.

The proof that Duke could do this, that it could be led by a steady-headed freshman with guts of metal and a beautiful beat for the biggest moments, it came in January. Duke improbably rallied to beat Virginia. Jones singlehandedly took over and handed the Wahoos their first loss of the season. From there, everyone was all in.

"It wasn't really until that Virginia game -- he took it to another level," Winslow said. "I just knew from there we had the best point guard in the country."

Jones (19), Allen (10), Okafor (four) and Winslow (four) -- all freshmen -- scored each of Duke's points in the second half. Allen was deployed with a kaboom, a secret weapon released via launch codes on the final night of the season. His 16 points were second most on Monday night to Jones. It was just the fifth time all season he cracked double figures. 

With Wisconsin leading 48-39 with 13 minutes to go, a red sea of Badgers supporters were ready to blast the sides off the building. Then Allen scored Duke's next eight points and pulled the team from the water.

Okafor, who had one of his worst performances of the season, called this "the best game of my life."

It was Jones' 3-pointer with 1:24 left that buried Wisconsin. The cash from the top of the key put Duke up 66-58. Jones reacted with an all-time NCAA Tournament did-I-just-do-that face.

"Emotion, just emotion," Jones said of his reaction. "You dream of hitting a shot like that late in the game. ... Definitely, you don't expect to make a shot like that. ... When I saw it go through the hoop it was just one of those things where ... I'm just at a loss for words."

Duke, which had a superb offense this year from start to finish, is your new national champion because it converted its defense into one of the best units in the country. This was an unexpected turn of events, to say the least, and an uncommon conversion. But a necessary one in order to earn two nets and a trophy.

Duke allowed just 56.3 points per game on 38 percent shooting against six NCAA Tournament opponents. They won by 15.5 points and didn't allow anyone to crack 63 in a game.

"Hope, belief and trust," Jones said.

***

When the game ended, the first thing Quinn Cook did was run down the stairs, right to his mother in the first row. They didn't say anything. Just a big, sweaty hug.

"Those words that are the most powerful, they're the words that are not spoken," Janet Cook told CBSSports.com.

Cook, who lost his father seven years ago to a heart attack, when Cook was 14, has undergone a basketball transformation over the past four years. Especially the past 12 months. At the team's end-of-season banquet last year, Krzyzewski asked Janet to attend a meeting. He wanted to sit down with his senior-to-be, and her, to discuss a change in philosophy for Quinn and for the team. Jones would be coming in, and he was going to be the point guard.

"It's been emotional because we've had challenges for seven years," Janet Cook said. "But to make gold, you have to go through the fire."

Tyus Jones is not Tyus Jones unless Quinn Cook is at Duke, unless Cook acquiesces and becomes the vintage type of veteran Krzyzewski's teams have always needed to win a championship.

"We're all a work in progress," Janet Cook said. "It's difficult when these kids come in with crazy talent, and different accolades, McDonald's All-American, this, that and the third, and your role is a little different. ... He said, 'Quinn, you need to be the person -- and I'm not even sure if Coach K knew -- but he knew Quinn had to move to a different mental situation."

He got there. And on Monday night, Cook got to cry his eyes empty because of his sacrifices. He got the ultimate payoff. He put blind faith in his coach, unsure of what would come, and visibly looked more appreciate of winning over Wisconsin than any other member of Duke's team.

****

After Wisconsin's Duje Dukan had peeled off the massive "W" logo Velcroed to the wall of the hallway, but before Nigel Hayes left carrying his team's massive bracket board back to the team bus, Frank Kaminsky was trudging his way out of the stadium. He had his backpack on, and Jones was again about to cross his path yet again. 

They stopped once more and shared a private moment: The Player of the Year and the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player shared 30 seconds together, consolations and congratulations.

"I told him he had a great season," Jones told CBSSports.com just after the exchange. "I told him I had all respect for him. We're going to talk to each other later. It's just one of those things, you have respect for guys like that. He has nothing to hang his head about."

Kaminsky walked out of Lucas Oil Stadium defeated but a champion of an incredible, unforgettable college career.

Jones turned back to the locker room, prepared for another 15 minutes of interviews, and tried to explain how he did what he just did, how Duke downed Wisconsin.

Those words: "Hope, belief and trust."

And some good karma. Jones wasn't aware of it, but he and Okafor both spent time on YouTube this past weekend. They separately, without realizing it, watched a few previous versions of "One Shining Moment."

Then they watched their own, together, out there on the floor Monday night.