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ATLANTA -- Here comes Duke.

Running on empty and up on two wheels, Duke careened out of Atlanta as if it had just stolen something Sunday afternoon. Mike Krzyzewski drove his team to another ACC championship, and now the Blue Devils head to Greensboro to start another road trip.

Krzyzewski turned his team loose on Florida State in a 79-69 win that was as big as any in his career. And it might've been Duke's best game of the season. After a year of rebuilding his team on the fly, Krzyzewski knows he has one of the best teams in the country heading into the NCAA tournament.

Heading into the conference tournament, it wasn't apparent that Duke had the depth or even the desire to push for a title in a league tourney that had no apparent favorite. When the four-day event began, it seemed any number of teams were capable of winning. About midway through the first half of the final, however, it was obvious that Krzyzewski had positioned his team perfectly once again.

And with the game decided late and the 62-year-old coach demanding the Duke fans rise and acknowledge his team, it was obvious that he just wanted it more.

"I'm very proud of our team," he said. "We won a championship in a league that's been a tremendous league."

A league title seemed a long way off in February when Duke went to Clemson and lost by 30 during a stretch of games in which the Blue Devils would lose four of six. A daring move to put Jon Scheyer at the point and not the trio of point guards who found their roles altered suddenly and permanently.

"I knew he would handle it," Krzyzewski said of Scheyer. "I didn't doubt it."

He said Scheyer didn't have the option of not accepting the role or of not excelling in it. The junior shooting guard found himself running an odd basketball team seemingly built with ill-fitting parts. But just like that, Duke got better.

The team that took down FSU didn't resemble the one Duke took to Clemson and, in fact, looked even better than the one Krzyzewski thought he'd brought to Atlanta. In a dark-blue sea of Duke fans inside the Georgia Dome, the Blue Devils seemed transformed.

"We lost to a team that deserved to be the ACC champion," FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said.

The four days in Atlanta proved there were a lot of teams that didn't deserve it. And when the NCAA brackets were announced Sunday evening, it was clear the ACC tournament had taken its toll. Wake, once the No. 1 team in the nation, is a No. 4 seed. Clemson, once 16-0 and 10th in the country, is a No. 7 seed. North Carolina, thought to be the top team in the NCAA field, was given the No. 3 designation, and Virginia Tech and Miami were tossed aside. While ACC coaches lobbied at times for nine teams to get into the big tournament, only seven got in.

After a great season by the league deemed to be the best according to the RPI ratings, the NCAA committee saw what happened down here and acted accordingly.

Wake Forest came apart here. Clemson self-destructed. North Carolina, without Ty Lawson, played indifferently and without the passion required to win the event. Boston College, Maryland and Florida State had the burden of dealing with the team that wanted it more than any other.

Duke built momentum over the four days, continuing the rebuilding project with Scheyer at the point and a revolving set of snipers around him. The team that showed up Sunday afternoon was a marvel, a free-wheeling, gunning machine that produced seven 3-pointers in the first half and committed only four turnovers the entire game.

Krzyzewski rode the wave, matched Hamilton's every coaching move with a maneuver that trumped the ACC's coach of the year and hoped his players could hold off all-conference guard Toney Douglas. In the end, Duke played flawlessly in a display of press-breaking offense and back-breaking free-throw shooting. Scheyer set a tournament record with 13 free throws, 11 in the final minutes as the last team with a shot at Duke went down reluctantly and grudgingly.

In the final minute Sunday, Krzyzewski stood red-faced on the sideline, the veins in his neck bulging as he screamed at his team and clenched both fists.

"C'mon!" he yelled.

Then he looked up at the sea of dark blue and raised his hands, telling the crowd to get up.

"C'mon!" he screamed at the fans.

Over the final weeks of the regular season, Krzyzewski demanded his team re-invent itself, regain its image and return Duke to its standing in the college game. He'd won 10 ACC tournaments, three behind Dean Smith and light years ahead of anyone else. His decision to remake his team so late in the season had nothing to do with injuries. It had everything to do with the league and a tournament he has long thought to be the ultimate test and a scaled-down version of the NCAA tourney.

He now has 11 titles and a team that is somehow a lot better than it was last month or even last week, when it still seemed possible yet far-fetched that he could take his Devils down to Georgia and steal the ACC championship.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com