DURHAM Kemba Walker, the Connecticut guard who established himself as college basketball's early favorite for national player of the year, sent Duke senior guard Nolan Smith a text message last week.

"You're hot now," Smith said the text read.

Smith texted a reply.

"I told him, 'You're still hot. You haven't cooled off,'" Smith said.

Walker was right, though. Smith is hot.

With a torrid scoring streak during recent games, Smith has joined Walker in the small group of elite players being mentioned as candidates for national player of the year. And there might not be a hotter player in the nation than Smith, as No.1 Duke (14-0, 1-0 ACC) prepares to play host to Maryland (10-4, 0-1) at 8 p.m. today (Fox Sports Carolinas).

Over his past five games, Smith has scored 22, 22, 26, 28 and then a career-high 33 points Wednesday against Alabama-Birmingham.

"I think Nolan is probably playing as well as anyone in the country right now," coach Mike Krzyzewski said Wednesday. "He's playing great."

ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said Smith has been in the national player of the year race since the beginning of the season. Bilas, a former Duke player and assistant coach, said Smith is on the list along with Walker and Brigham Young guard Jimmer Fredette.

Smith entered the weekend leading the ACC in scoring and assists (19.6 ppg, 5.6 apg). The senior guard also was second in the ACC with a field-goal percentage of .534, but his maturity is what impresses Bilas.

"He gives things time to develop, and he knows that he's looking for," Bilas said. "And so he doesn't get going too fast, which is what younger players do. They end up going 1,000 miles an hour. He gives the defense a chance to make a mistake."

Team goals

At his apartment, Smith has a desk that holds fan mail and photographs from his time as a Duke basketball player, keepsakes that are special to him. A list of goals also sits on the desk.

"I more so look at the team goals," Smith said. "I don't even pay attention to the individual goals, for real. I look at the team goals before I walk out every day. They're somewhere where I can see them, if I just glance out before I come to practice."

One goal is to be national player of the year, but Smith wasn't much of a factor in that race early this season. Walker, who was averaging 26.1 points per game entering the weekend and was the nation's scoring leader in the most recently tabulated Division I rankings, grabbed a lot of early headlines.

At Duke, so did freshman point guard Kyrie Irving. But during the eighth game of the season, against Butler, Irving injured the big toe on his right foot and is sidelined indefinitely.

With Irving out, everybody in Duke's backcourt has been asked to do more, and Smith has elevated his game more than any other player.

"I'm just in a very good rhythm," Smith said. "The ball is in my hands, so I get a good feel for the ball from the get go, running our team. Just coming off the ball screens and coming off our sets and being aggressive, shots are there and passes are there."

Smith is hurting opponents in a number of ways. Duke sets screens for him on the perimeter, and defenders who go underneath the screens watch him rise up and make 3-point shots.

If the defender goes over the screen to prevent the jump shot, Smith, at 6-foot-2, gains an advantage with a quick first step toward the basket for a layup or dunk.

"He just gets on a roll," said teammate Kyle Singler, "and once he gets his 3s going, he's hard to guard."

UAB coach Mike Davis, who watched Smith torch his team for 33 points, is most impressed with Smith's stamina. Krzyzewski has said Smith and Singler are going to play 40 minutes on a lot of nights.

Davis said it's typical for a scorer to get eight quick points and then get weary. That doesn't happen to Smith, he said.

"This guy is unbelievable from this standpoint," Davis said. "He plays the same way the whole night against Miami for 40 minutes (on Jan.2). Forty minutes, and you never could tell he was tired at all."

If Smith keeps it up, and Duke keeps winning, he could become the 10th Duke player to receive some kind of national player of the year recognition. Bilas said lots of factors go into such postseason awards voting, including statistics and the perception of which players are most valuable on the best teams.

Walker's scoring and the success of No.8-ranked Connecticut make him one of the frontrunners. Fredette entered the weekend averaging 25.1 points per game for No.15 Brigham Young.

But Smith is the first Duke player to score at least 22 points in five straight games since J.J. Redick did it 16 straight times during 2005-06. And Smith has the advantage of playing on the No.1 team in the nation, a team that gets a lot of national TV exposure.

When somebody for Duke plays extremely well, it doesn't go unnoticed. And Smith - as Walker put it - is hot.

"If you take one thing away from him you're going to leave something else open, and he can capitalize on that mistake," Bilas said. "I think that's what the best players do and what the most mature players do."