However it may occur, whether in New Orleans or San Francisco or, God forbid, Greenville, the end of the road draws near for Duke and Mike Krzyzewski, who, as you may have heard, is retiring. Krzyzewski has done what he can to dampen the narrative around him in an attempt to keep the focus on his very young team, which earned a No. 2 seed in the tournament having gone 28–6, a quality campaign in all respects. But as the spotlight on the Blue Devils magnifies this week, the tenor of the national conversation has been that Duke doesn’t quite have the feel of a contender, and that it isn’t quite playing its best basketball at the best time of year.

After spending last week watching Duke up close at the ACC tournament, this writer can echo that sentiment: The Blue Devils slogged their way through three tournament games, withstanding a barrage of threes from Syracuse in the quarterfinals, playing a more composed but still strenuous game against Miami in the semis and ultimately falling to scalding, confident Virginia Tech by 15 points in a game that got away from them down the stretch. Duke tips off Friday at 7:10 p.m. ET against Cal State-Fullerton, and enters the tourney with some stuff to figure out, to say the least.

One would think Krzyzewski’s final Duke team has more in the tank, and the hope would be that having the majority of the week to prepare should give it some extra juice headed into the weekend. A first-round win would draw the winner of Michigan State (a quasi rival Duke has battled with quite a bit over the years) and Davidson (an in-state opponent Duke hasn’t played since 2013). Advance, and it could be Texas Tech. Past that, the path most likely leads to a rematch with top overall seed Gonzaga: the Blue Devils are one of just three teams that took down the Zags, a neutral-site win that still stands as the best indicator of this group’s…