Could struggling Duke slip to bubble team?

RALEIGH, N.C. – Mike Krzyzewski had yet to establish himself as Coach K the last time he was on Duke’s bench and the Blue Devils missed the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

That was 1983, when he was a little-known third-year coach with a tough-to-spell last name.

Now, 24 years later, Duke is hurting again. The Blue Devils have lost four straight games – their longest losing streak in 11 years – and are out of the Top 25 for the first time since 1996.

With Selection Sunday less than four weeks away, these young Blue Devils have some serious work to do to secure their 12th straight NCAA tournament appearance and avoid the shame of tumbling from basketball blueblood to bubble team – or worse, NIT participant.

“You have to concentrate on the job at hand, because if you don’t take care of the job at hand, or don’t attempt to do as well as you possibly can, then the big picture will always be not as good,” Krzyzewski said on Monday. “When you’re coming off losses, at times that becomes more difficult.”

The losses are piling up at an historic rate for the Blue Devils (18-7, 5-6 Atlantic Coast Conference), who expected a mild downturn this year after the graduation of J.J. Redick and Shelden Williams, the top two scorers on a team that spent much of last season ranked No. 1.

But even though Duke has just one upperclassman on scholarship – and its eight-man rotation features four freshmen and three sophomores – not many experts expected this.

The Blue Devils on Sunday absorbed their most lopsided ACC defeat since 2003 when Maryland won 72-60, extending their longest slide since they lost four straight in January 1996.

The first two losses of that year’s streak knocked Duke from the Associated Press Top 25. The Blue Devils resurfaced at No. 10 in the preseason poll of 1996-97 and remained ranked for 200 consecutive weeks – the second-longest streak of all time – before it came to a screeching end.

They’re eight points behind No. 25 Alabama in the latest rankings, marking the end of a string Krzyzewski called “a good stat thing.”

A loss at Boston College on Wednesday would give the Blue Devils their first five-game losing streak since dropping six in a row in a miserable 1994-95 season.

“I don’t know if there’s any good time to catch Duke,” Eagles coach Al Skinner said. “No one would have ever predicted that that was going to happen. … I don’t care if it’s after one game lost, two games lost, three games – regardless of what they did, they’re going to be prepared and play their tails off.”

Duke opened 1994-95 with a 9-3 record before Krzyzewski left the team because of back surgery and exhaustion. Interim coach Pete Gaudet went 4-15 the rest of the way for a 13-18 finish.

Because the final 19 games are on Gaudet’s record, a Krzyzewski-coached Duke team hasn’t lost more than four in a row.

“I should have been credited with all the losses,” Coack K said.

The first two losses of the present slide – against Virginia and Florida State – each came down to last-second shots. Duke led rival North Carolina for most of the way before fading, and Maryland pounced on the Blue Devils early and never let up.

“Is it lack of effort? Is it lack of belief? Is it lack of work? It’s none of those things for our guys,” Krzyzewski said. “They believe. They work hard. … Maryland just kicked us back. But the other three games, we were in a position to win.”

Barring a total collapse, the Blue Devils’ quality nonconference wins over nationally ranked Indiana, Georgetown and Air Force probably should be enough to keep their RPI ranking high and earn them a spot in the NCAA field of 65.

Then again, a free fall remains a possibility – four of their final six games are on the road, where they’re 2-3.

Krzyzewski said his players’ hard work and self-confidence are the keys to getting back on track.