It was not the same as catching Duke versus North Carolina in March, or any live Duke basketball game for that matter. But I did watch Duke’s dominant 78-57 victory over Bob Huggins’ surprisingly lax and unimaginative West Virginia Mountaineers in the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Semifinals last night on a screen inside the fabled Cameron Indoor Arena in Durham, North Carolina. I was joined by 2500 clean-cut, blue-accented, culturally un-ironic and non-transgressive (this is not Reed or Evergreen) Duke students in witnessing the Blue Devils' first trip to the NCAA Finals in nine years.

The "Dookies" owned the game from start to finish, with stifling defense, ferocious offensive rebounding -- leading to several three-point buckets -- and steady offensive pressure, which led to several easy and open shots throughout the contest. In the end, it was the triumph of the values that Duke stands for, and Crotty holds dear, that carried the team to victory: A. Team Focus; B. Relentless Pressure; C. Discipline; D. Senior leadership. All orchestrated beautifully by college basketball's maestro, and American living treasure, Coach Mike Krzyzewski (a.k.a. “Coach K”).

How refreshing that two schools with among the highest graduation rates in NCAA basketball (no easy feat at a top ten academic school like Duke, which, even with occasional NBA defections, still graduates 92% of its athletes) will meet in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Finals in Indianapolis. Though by no means a “Cinderella” (the college game’s vernacular for a long shot), the Horizon League’s Butler Bulldogs run (well, more like grind) to the NCAA Finals still represents the furthest a mid-major conference team has ever gone in the tournament (UNLV in its heyday hardly counted as a mid-major). Those of us, like our President, who follow college basketball are not surprised.

Because of the egregious “one-and-done” practice of major talent leaving for the NBA after just one year of college ball, the traditional recruiting powers – Kentucky, North Carolina, UCLA, and Kansas – must rebuild their rosters on a yearly basis. Sometimes they get lucky, and go far with inexperienced future superstars (Syracuse’s 2003 national championship in New Orleans, which Crotty attended, featuring one-and-done Carmelo Anthony, is a rare case in point). And sometimes they get divine intervention when their talented players decide to stick around two or three years. This was the case with the Florida Gators, which, because of such rare commitment to the college game from their future NBA talent (Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, Al Horford,), was able to repeat as national champions in 2006 and 2007. But, as a rule, mercenary star athletes, raised on the promise of NBA riches, don’t see a college education, or the team-first, values-based discipline provided by the likes of Duke, as of much relevance.

While a sad commentary on the weight that financially codependent star parents place on the long-term value of education, the silver lining in all this is that it benefits college coaches who don’t fall for bling-bling McDonald’s All-America talent, but, instead, opt for solid, mature, selfless players interested in an education and graduating college. Though he's had some duds who bucked this trend (who can argue that the talented Corey Magette would have benefited psychologically and defensively from at least two more years at Duke), count the inspiring Coach K in this rarefied group. And now put Butler’s young coach, Brad Stevens, in that camp too.

If North Carolina, Kentucky, UCLA, and Kansas had been able to keep their ridiculously talented players from the last four years, any one of those schools could have crushed Butler, Michigan State, or West Virginia. The very presence of these good, but not great teams, in the Final Four is directly tied to the one-and-done phenomenon. But what I find gratifying from tonight’s Duke victory over West Virginia is that this is a team so determined, wise, and disciplined in what they do well -- with role players who understand implicitly how best to contribute -- that even if a top school kept all their NBA-bound talent all four years, Duke could still beat them with the far less talented lineup they currently possess.

Relevant here is a paraphrase of an old adage I use with the high school students I coach in debate. As a freshman, you know nothing, and you know you know nothing. As a sophomore, you know nothing, but you think you know something. As a junior, you know something, but you don’t think you know anything. And as a senior, you know something, and you know you know something. That adage sums up Duke’s four starting seniors (Scheyer, Thomas, Singler, and Zoubek). They are tough. They are smart. And they are fearless. They know something about how to win. And they know that they know it.

As wonderful a story as Butler’s rise to the NCAA Finals is – playing only a few miles from their own court, Hinkle Fieldhouse, where scenes from the film “Hoosiers” were shot – the home town Bulldogs will succumb to the Duke Blue Devils on Monday night, giving Coach K his fourth national championship. But not because Butler has any less heart or tenacity (their suffocating defense and ball control offense has kept all five of their opponents in the tournament under 60 points-per-game). Not even because they have any less talent or drive (after all, they’ve won 25 straight games). But because every once in awhile a message is sent from on high about what it takes to be truly great, using the talent one has at hand. Duke exemplifies that message. They represent the Platonic form of great coaching matched with team basketball. And in an age when those remaining few who still ascribe to the ancient Greek, Roman, and Renaissance ideals of excellence in both mind and body have lost all interest in the sloppy, me-first NBA -- with its nightly cascade of dunks and showboating by boorish, barely literate gazillionaires -- Duke represents that voice of quiet refinement in an age of garish mediocre excess.

As America’s standing as a world power fades due to our singular unwillingness to demand that ALL our young men and women know how to read, write, and think critically, as well as carry themselves with strength, discipline, and integrity, the academically and athletically superior Duke University offers a ray of hope on how we could work our way back to the top.

Go Duke! Go America!