Columnist Steve Carp: Don’t expect UConn to roll over and play dead

Steve Carp

Monday, March 29, 1999 | 9:47 a.m.

Steve Carp covers college basketball for the Las Vegas Sun. This column is one in a series on the road to the NCAA Championship.

T. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- So this Duke team could beat the 1991 UNLV squad, huh?

Given what transpired Saturday at Tropicana Field, Jerry Tarkanian may want a chance to withdraw that statement. The Tarkmeister seems to have gotten caught up in the moment thinking that these Dookies are the greatest team to ever lace up their Nikes.

Duke looked mortal for most of the game against a Michigan State team that couldn't throw a pea in the bay. And it took William Avery and Trajan Langdon to bail out the Blue Devils, 68-62, and avoid the most improbable upset since ... well, 1991.

But today is a new day. And maybe 37-1 Duke will crush 33-2 Connecticut tonight and Tark will be proved right.

Somehow, I doubt it. The Huskies aren't going to roll over and play dead. And if you think UConn will, either you haven't followed it very closely or you're a Tobacco Road myopian.

That's not to say Duke isn't capable of administering a savage beating to UConn. The tempo tonight at Tropicana Field is going to be more Samba than slow dance. Connecticut is going to run, play fast and try to get the Dookies in a transition game.

Which probably plays into Duke's hands, because the Blue Devils led the nation in scoring, averaging 92 points a game. And you don't score that often doing the Viennese waltz.

Still, there are a couple key individual matchups that will decide the outcome tonight and determine who climbs the ladder to cut down the nets around 8:30.

Can Avery, who took over Saturday's game when Michigan State pulled within three, do the same thing against Ricky Moore, UConn's defensive specialist, who will likely draw the assignment to shut him down?

Moore put Ohio State's Scoonie Penn, arguably the best individual player in this Final Four, in jail, holding him to just three field goals in UConn's 64-58 win.

Can Jake Voskuhl stay on the floor long enough to battle Elton Brand, Duke's manchild sophomore center?

Brand, who is a bigger version of Larry Johnson and whose game has a lot of Willis Reed in it, was virtually unstoppable. Michigan State double-teamed him, even tripled him, and the only thing that stopped Brand was his case of Ralph Sampsonitis, where a big man thinks he's a point guard.

He picked up his fourth foul trying to lead the fast break with seven-plus minutes to go and steamrolled Mateen Cleaves.

Voskuhl may not be much of an offensive threat. But he's an underrated defensive post player. He can rebound, box out and deny Brand his spots close to the basket. But Voskuhl is foul-prone himself. If you see him on the bench early in the first half, UConn's in big trouble.

Finally, can Khalid El-Amin and Richard Hamilton, UConn's 1-2 offensive punch, score a knockout?

They have to maintain offensive continuity for the Huskies to have a legitimate shot at winning. The more weapons Connecticut can use effectively, the shorter the offensive lulls, the better its chances.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said the scoring runs will be a big factor in who wins.

"Their team can spurt, and so can we," he said Sunday. "Neither team wants to have the other get too far ahead. How they handle that situation will be important." And even if UConn brings the entire package tonight, it still may not be enough.

While Duke did look vulnerable Saturday, it did respond in a positive fashion. And remember, this is a young team which starts just one senior in Langdon. And none of the Dookies had faced the hot glare of the Final Four spotlight before Saturday.

That they didn't wilt under the heat indicates they can take a punch and fight back.

"That was important," Langdon said of how the Blue Devils handled the adversity of seeing a double-digit lead dwindle to three and have their big man Brand on the bench with the four personals. "Playing in a game like that was great preparation for our game with Connecticut."

It probably means Coach K will be climbing the ladder tonight, bad hip and all, for the third time this decade. But will Duke be the best team ever, as some have anointed them?

The jury's still out on that one.