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Duke rally caps Coach K's 'favorite year'

 
Published April 8, 2015

DURHAM, N.C. — Quinn Cook turned and pointed to the Cameron Indoor Stadium rafters, toward the four national championship banners that cast long shadows at Duke.

Then the Blue Devils captain said: "I think they've got to make some room up there" for another.

Duke brought its latest national championship trophy back to campus Tuesday, with perhaps 8,000 fans flocking to Cameron for this title celebration.

The Blue Devils earned banner No. 5 by beating Wisconsin 68-63 in Monday night's title game in Indianapolis.

During Tuesday's 35-minute rally on campus, coach Mike Krzyzewski called this "my favorite year" — a strong statement for a Hall of Famer who just wrapped up his 35th season here.

"My guys have been an absolute joy to coach," Krzyzewski said.

Cook led the team onto the stage and big man Marshall Plumlee brought out the championship trophy. Krzyzewski said President Barack Obama called him to offer an invitation to the White House.

For Cook, this was the perfect way to go out.

"They've made this the greatest year we ever could have imagined," he said. "These guys have made my senior year magical."

Duke ended the season with eight scholarship players. Half were freshmen, though some (Jahlil Okafor, Tyus Jones, Justise Winslow) could wind up in the NBA next season.

As a result, the theme of this season was to live in the present. The Blue Devils couldn't worry about the expectations that came with representing a program that already had four national titles, not to mention those pesky, recent early NCAA Tournament losses to Lehigh and Mercer.

"What we've tried to do all year is enjoy the moment," Krzyzewski said.

"In the history of our program, we've won a lot of things, and one of the reasons we won was not because we were pursuing a fifth (championship). It was because we were pursuing our own."

Plane crash kills seven

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — A private plane returning from the NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis crashed in a central Illinois field, killing all seven people on board, including Illinois State's associate head basketball coach and a deputy athletics director.

Rescue personnel found no survivors at the site near Bloomington, and a coroner pronounced the seven occupants dead, McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage said.

Authorities were withholding official identification of victims pending notification of family. But university president Larry Dietz confirmed in an email to students, faculty and staff that associate head basketball coach Torrey Ward and Aaron Leetch, the athletic department's deputy director for external relations, were killed.

TV RATINGS: The NCAA title game drew its largest TV audience in 18 years. Duke's win over Wisconsin on CBS averaged 28.3 million viewers, the most since 1997, when Arizona upset defending champion Kentucky in overtime, CBS and Turner Sports said. That's up 33 percent from the 21.3 million for Connecticut's victory over Kentucky last year.

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