WASHINGTON — The player, Ahmed Hill, was free in a flash. There were 1.1 seconds left in a two-point basketball game, and for a fraction of a second it was in Hill’s hands, which were a couple of inches from the rim. The roar inside Capital One Arena was overwhelming, and everyone agreed with Zion Williamson, who had the best look of all.
“Hill did a loop,” the Duke forward said, “and I’m not going to lie to you. I said, ‘We’re going to overtime.’ ”
Virginia Tech had pushed Duke to the brink, same as Central Florida had a week earlier. The Knights missed a tip-in at the buzzer that would’ve taken the Blue Devils out. Hill had a ball in his hands that could push this extraordinary game an extra five minutes. Everyone knew that. Everyone saw that.
“I saw a miss,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
And then everyone else did, too. The ball was at the rim, and then it was off the rim, and for a second time in six days Duke had survived the most perilous of circumstances. Tech had been a bear all night, right to one last magnificent play culled out of Coach Buzz Williams’ brain. Duke endured anyway, 75-73.
They get at least one more game.
And so does Zion.
The rest of the arena tried to catch its collective breath; Williamson didn’t need the breather. His scream could be heard above the din. He’d been brilliant all night, 23 points and six rebounds of brilliant, and his career at Duke would last to the weekend. Tech was valiant. Duke had a little bit more. Same as it had a little bit more Sunday in Columbia, S.C.
“We’ve focused on one goal all year,” Williamson said. “And that goal is still alive.”
The thing about Zion the collegian is that, while you can’t assume he will drop 30 points and grab 20 rebounds every game, he always gives you a couple of legitimate “WOW” moments every time he laces up his Nikes (as long as they didn’t act like clown shoes on him).
Such was the case Friday, when he made a handful of plays that, up close, genuinely took your breath away.
Then there was the alley-oop. Tre Jones (brilliant in his own right, 22 points, eight assists, zero turnovers) had made a steal. Duke — down four at the half — was up four now, seeking separation. Jones lofted a ball that seemed like it was headed over the backboard until a meaty paw intercepted it as it was still rising.
Jones: “I know how high Zion can jump. That’s a momentum play for us. Put it up there, and I know he’s gonna go get it.”
Zion: “Tre made an incredible steal. I was running the lane and he threw it up there and I went and got it.”
He got it. The reaction at Capital One could be heard out by the baseball stadium on the other side of the district. It could be heard at the football stadium on the other side of the Maryland state line.
“We have a great team,” Krzyzewski said, and he is right, and they are stout-hearted, and they have made a late-season habit of winning one-possession games, and that is a useful habit to have.
They were all part of a great season, and there are more than a few players on the roster who will have long careers at the next level. RJ Barrett may well be the second-best player in America. Jones will be a terrific NBA player. But this Duke team, from the start, was like the Four Seasons or the Supremes. Even in those years when Frankie Valli and Diana Ross didn’t have their names leading the band, you knew who the lead singer was and who the backups were.
Maybe Zion won’t be that level of basketball freak on the next level, because he isn’t as big as he seems and the NBA makes a habit of humbling, at least in the short term, all but the most rarefied of talents. We’ll find that out soon enough. For now, we have him at least one more game. That’s a good thing for Duke. It’s a better thing for college basketball.
