No wonder Duke likes NIT Preseason Tourney

The Associated Press

E-Mail

reprint or license

Comments (0)

Text Size:

tool goes here

NEW YORK — Mike Krzyzewski played at Madison Square Garden as a cadet at Army in the 1960s. He has brought his Duke teams to the New York City arena enough that the Blue Devils have a history there with three NIT Season Tip-Off titles.

Now they are within two wins of a fourth.

The seventh-ranked Blue Devils (4-0) face Arizona State (4-0) in the second game of tonight's semifinal doubleheader after No. 13 Connecticut (3-0) goes against LSU (3-0).

The Blue Devils are 20-2 in the tournament and on a 10-game winning streak in it.

"The NIT, I feel, is the best of the early season tournaments because you have a day off in between, which simulates the NCAA tournament. It really is about taking two weekends and playing two little tournaments and you have to win to advance," he said Tuesday. "Once you come to New York it does have a Final Four atmosphere and obviously that includes playing the Garden."

Arizona State coach Herb Sendek said players all know how special the Garden can be.

"Coming to New York City and playing in the Garden gives everybody goose bumps," he said. "Every generation learns about it from the previous generation. The guys on our team have heard the coaches talk about it, they listen to commentators on TV ... they know about it through others' eyes of how special it is."

Many expect a Duke-Connecticut final, a game that would bring together two Hall of Fame coaches with more than 800 wins each. They met here in the 1999 Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, but it was in the third-place game.