Duke

Lynne Duke, 56, a journalist who brought an emotional clarity to the most trenchant stories, from the crack epidemic that terrorized a Miami housing project to the legacy of apartheid South Africa, died Friday at her home in Silver Spring, Md. The cause was lung cancer, said her husband, Phillip Dixon, a former city editor for the Washington Post and former managing editor of The Inquirer. She worked at the Post from 1987 to 2008, retiring as a Style-section editor after assignments reporting from Johannesburg and New York.

SUNDAY WAS a bittersweet day for 76ers coach Doug Collins, none of it having to do with his basketball team. Collins was at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to watch as his son, Chris, sat on the bench for the final time as the associate head coach of the Duke Blue Devils, who were ousted from the tournament by the Louisville Cardinals in the Midwest Regional final. The younger Collins played four seasons for coach Mike Krzyzewski and was on the bench with him in a coaching capacity for another 13 years.

INDIANAPOLIS - With tears in their eyes after a terrible injury to Kevin Ware, there was no way the Louisville Cardinals were losing this game to Duke. Russ Smith scored 23 points, Gorgui Dieng had 14 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks, and the top-seeded Cardinals put aside the shock from the gruesome broken leg suffered by Ware in the first half to earn a second straight trip to the Final Four with an 85-63 victory over Duke on Sunday. Ware, a sophomore guard, was injured when he landed after jumping and attempting to block a shot.

INDIANAPOLIS - With tears in their eyes and Kevin Ware in their hearts, there was no way Louisville was losing this game. Russ Smith scored 23, Gorgui Dieng had 14 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks, and top-seeded Louisville (33-5) put aside the shock from Ware's gruesome leg injury to earn a second straight trip to the Final Four with an 85-63 victory over Duke (30-6) on Sunday afternoon. As the final seconds ticked down, Chane Behanan put Ware's jersey on and stood at the end of the Louisville bench, screaming.

INDIANAPOLIS - Mike Krzyzewski and Rick Pitino are finally doing an encore. For the first time since their teams played perhaps the greatest game in the history of the NCAA tournament, Krzyzewski and Pitino will meet in the NCAA tournament Sunday when top-seeded Louisville faces Duke. In the Midwest Regional final, no less. Never mind that few of their current players were even born in 1992. Or that Pitino is no longer at Kentucky, having switched sides in the state's civil war after his brief trip to Boston and the NBA ended badly.

INDIANAPOLIS - Michigan State coach Tom Izzo and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski have been teaching young men how to play basketball for decades. On Thursday, they demonstrated why they are so good. They stay loose. Instead of getting tense and out of sorts the day before the Midwest Regional's well-hyped coaching matchup, the pair took turns praising each other's style, their loyalty to their schools and their teams' penchant for limiting mistakes. "I consider him a great friend.

INDIANAPOLIS - Louisville survived its first test. Russ Smith matched his career high with 31 points to lead three Cardinals in double figures, and top-seeded Louisville showed it can win close games, too, beating Oregon, 77-69, on Friday night in the Midwest Regional semifinals. Kevin Ware added 11, and Gorgui Dieng had 10 points and nine rebounds for Louisville, which has won 13 straight. Coach Rick Pitino improved to 11-0 in the regional semifinals of the NCAA tournament. "We dug ourselves a pretty big hole and weren't able to come back," Oregon coach Dana Altman said.

If Duke basketball is a religion, its sanctuary is a quirky campus arena located 350 miles south of Philadelphia, where the Blue Devils made yet another NCAA tournament appearance this weekend. Thanks to Duke's prolonged run of excellence, 73-year-old Cameron Indoor Stadium - quaint, intimate, home to a noisy and whimsical student section - has become the most ballyhooed symbol of history and charm in a sport that typically pays little attention to either. Classically Georgian in design, Cameron has girdered ceilings, a utilitarian pre-World War II elegance, and an acoustical magic that can transform several thousand voices into an earthquake.

Duke has played parts of three NCAA tournaments in Philadelphia, and it has never lost a game. The sixth win came as Sunday night turned into Monday morning when the second-seeded Blue Devils sealed a 66-50 win over seventh-seeded Creighton in the round of 32 at the Wells Fargo Center. The Blue Devils advanced to play Michigan State in Indianapolis on Friday. It will be their fourth Sweet 16 in the last five seasons. It's not often that a Duke game is anticlimactic, but that's what happened when the Blue Devils took the court following the frenzy of Florida Gulf Coast's unexpected run. And the game featured a different style, too. It was a physical, grinding contest of attrition rather than a full-court highlight reel.

Amile Jefferson had never played at the Wells Fargo Center before. The last time he was in the building, Jefferson was a spectator, watching No. 3 Duke get upset by Temple, 78-73, on Jan. 4, 2012. Jefferson was a senior at Friends' Central then, fielding offers from some of the most prestigious college basketball programs in the country. A little more than a month later, he scored 14 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools boys' basketball tournament final, helping the Phoenix win their fourth straight title.