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When Duke lost consecutive games in mid-February at Wake Forest and Miami, it was tempting to look for signs of the Blue Devils' demise. After all, this was a team that was 18-3 last season before losing seven of its last 11 games. And hadn't Duke already surprised everyone this season with its strong start? Maybe this was the beginning of the slide for the Blue Devils.

Maybe not.

Since that point Duke has won four of five, with that one loss coming in an intense 40-minute battle with No. 1 North Carolina.

"I think you can go too deep," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, when asked to analyze the Wake and Miami losses. "As a staff we didn't overreact to it. We kind of knew, 'OK, we have two losses in the ACC, and eight or nine wins (10 actually). That's not too bad.' "

No argument here, but what about the 22 turnovers the Blue Devils committed against Wake? Or the 96 points and 57 percent shooting Duke yielded at Miami?

"Teams deserved credit too," guard Greg Paulus said. "There are a lot of talented players in this league."

Uncharacteristically slow starts in each game by Duke also allowed the Deacons and the Hurricanes to feed off enthusiastic home crowds.

"In the ACC, you can't let that happen," said swingman Gerald Henderson. "If you give anybody confidence, good things are going to happen for them."

Krzyzewski did, though, offer an explanation for the two-game skid that usually sends up red flags for Duke.

"I think we have been a little tired," he said.

Ahhh, it's the most popular postmortem theory whenever Duke gets knocked out of the NCAA tournament before, say, the Final Four: The Devils put too much into the regular season and wear down by March. Is it happening again?

Actually, probably not.

First, the Duke coaching staff took the intensity of the team's practices down a notch after noticing fatigue in the Wake and Miami losses. Second, check out the number of bench players Duke has used in the five games since the Wake and Miami losses -- five. Yep, Krzyzewski, the man known for shortening his bench this time of the season, has lengthened it this time.

Perhaps the most notable addition to the rotation has been sophomore center Brian Zoubek, who missed a good chunk of the season while recovering from a foot injury. While Zoubek hasn't exactly brought back memories of Mike Gminski or Christian Laettner, he could give Duke something crucial in the coming weeks: someone to give freshman forward Kyle Singler relief on the low blocks.

While Singler has done an admirable job of banging against bigger men in the paint, all that work might be taking something out of his jump shot. Since scorching Maryland for 26 points, the ACC's rookie of the year has made shot just 29.7 percent of his 3-point attempts.

Like his coach, Singler said not to read too much into it.

"Right now, I feel good," he said. "I'm not worn down at all."

And even if Singler was?

"There's no time to feel sorry for myself."

Contact Jim Young at 373-7016 or jim.young @news-record.com