FREE TO BE THE BEST.(Duke wins the NCAA basketball championships)

Forget plays, just play. Mike Krzyzewski's coaching mantra carried Duke to its third national title in 11 seasons.

The bus to the national championship game would be leaving in a few minutes, and the Duke players were hustling themselves together on the way to the night of their lives. Sophomore center Casey Sanders closed the door to room 573 at the Radisson South in Bloomington, Minn. As it slammed, he was struck by a moment of clairvoyance.

"You're going to have a great game," Sanders said to his roommate.

Mike Dunleavy did not take him seriously. He quickly thought about his father, the Portland Trail Blazers coach of the same name, who would be watching from the stands at the Metrodome, 25 rows behind the Blue Devils bench. He made a joke. "Yeah, I'll need it," he said, "because my dad's going to have to draft me."

A big night for Michael Dunleavy? In the NCAA Tournament championship game against Arizona? Who would have conceived such a thing?

Yes, of course. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. He figured on such a night when deciding to recruit Dunleavy more fervently than California shooting guard Casey Jacobsen, who was in the same class and ended up at Stanford. He cultivated it as he encouraged Dunleavy to continue firing jump shots with confidence through a shooting slump that struck at the worst possible moment and reached 3 1/2 games by halftime against Arizona.

In that stretch, dating to a Sweet 16 victory over UCLA, Dunleavy missed all but two of the 14 3-point shots he attempted. In a 44-second span early in the second half of the Arizona game, he wiped away all that futility and delivered Krzyzewski his third national title.