Krzyzewski, Duke Ready for Upset Bid by California

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Will Duke be the next No. 1 to fall?

The Blue Devils, who entered the NCAA Tournament as a top seed for the ninth time in the past 13 years and 11th time overall, understand they have targets on their backs. That's daily life for the Dukies, even if critics howled longer and louder than usual over Duke's elite tourney seeding this year.

The Blue Devils, 38-8 as a No. 1 seed, face No. 8 California in Sunday's second round here at Veterans Memorial Arena. Duke is trying to advance to the Sweet 16 for the second time since it last made the Final Four in 2006.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski believes his program's tradition of success in the NCAA Tournament motivates and generates confidence among players.

"I think it's a learned experience because you don't have the same players all the time," Krzyzewski said.

"With this year's team, since we have some veteran players, it's helped the younger players understand it more, and therefore we've done better. But when we only had freshmen and sophomores a couple years ago, they don't understand that sometimes the team they saw on tape turned out to be a different team.

"But I think that's a sign of respect and it just hopefully makes you better. I think overall it's made us better over the years."

Duke is much bigger than Cal, deeper and plays more aggressive man-to-man pressure defense.

Still, the Golden Bears won their first Pac-10 title in 50 years and feature senior long-range shooters Jerome Randle, the Pac 10 Player of the Year and program's all-time leading scorer, Theo Robertson and Patrick Christopher.

The trio rank among the best three-point shooters in school history.

Robertson is listed first in career percentage (44 percent), while Randle is sixth. As a team, the Bears are shooting 37.7 percent from beyond the arc (225 of 597) after leading the country last season at 42.7 percent.

"They're all just great shooters, so for us it's important to make them work for their shots, not give them any easy looks," Duke guard Jon Scheyer said. "That's hard to do when they have that many great shooters, but for us, that's the key."

Cal, of course, has its sights on the target planted squarely on Duke's back.

"I think a lot of people are making a big deal out of just playing them," Randle said.

"They strap on their shoes as well as we do. They're a basketball team just as we are. I know they're going to come out and play hard, which they do every time they step on the court. We just have to come out and try to match their intensity and just really do the things that we do best to try to get a win."