Duke captains Quinn Cook and Amile Jefferson look to their past for inspiration

At Duke’s Countdown to Craziness last Saturday, Quinn Cook was the final player introduced. As he danced out to Lil Durk’s “Gas and Mud,” he pointed to the rafters.

More specifically, he pointed to the championship banners.

“I just remember Mason (Plumlee) doing it, and he had a great senior year,” Cook said.

This year’s captains – Cook and junior Amile Jefferson – are looking to the 2012-13 squad for inspiration, in many ways. For one, that was the most successful team Cook and Jefferson have been on at Duke, as the Blue Devils reached the Elite Eight. And the captains on that team – seniors Plumlee, Ryan Kelly and Seth Curry – made sure the team was ready for big moments.

That’s something that obviously didn’t happen at the end of last season.

“At the most important time of the year, we didn’t come in ready,” Cook said, reflecting on the NCAA tournament loss to Mercer.

The 2012-13 season began after a similarly tough ending – Plumlee and Co. were coming off a season that ended unceremoniously with a loss to No. 15-seeded Lehigh. And coach Mike Krzyzewski was gone for most of the summer with Team USA, too, just as he was this year.

And sometimes failure can inspire harder work.

“I think it’s easier to respond after a tough loss than it is to come back after a good season,” Cook said. “I think you have more motivation.”

Jefferson, unprompted, pointed to Plumlee, Curry and Kelly as his baseline for what it takes to be a successful captain. And he received his own crash course in leadership this summer, when he was sidelined with a left hip injury.

“I was constantly talking to them, constantly making sure that they were doing the right thing,” Jefferson said of his teammates. “Once you start talking to the guys and they get used to hearing your voice, it makes it a lot easier when I came back on the court to tell Jah (Okafor), ‘Move over,’ or ‘I need you up,’ or ‘Get up in him Tyus (Jones),’ because they were already used to hearing my voice.”

Talent isn’t to blame for Duke’s recent championship drought – a reporter reminded Cook that he hadn’t won an ACC regular-season title, ACC tournament or Final Four at Duke. Duke hasn’t had a banner drought of that length since the early years of Krzyzewski’s tenure in Durham (1980-85).

“Talent-wise, in my four years since I’ve been here, every team has had the talent to win it all,” Cook said. “I’ve never underestimated our talent. It’s whether we buy into what coach wants. Is everybody all in? As the games come around, that’s when we’ll start to find out how we are. My most successful year here at Duke, everyone was all in.”

Cook said he thinks leadership could be the difference between this talented team reaching its potential or falling short. The media believes in the Blue Devils, as they were picked to finish first in the league, earning 41 of 65 first-place votes. Cook said the players don’t talk outwardly about big-picture goals like reaching the Final Four, but the expectations are understood.

When asked what concerns him about this season’s team, Cook paused.

“Nothing that just jumps out at me right now,” he said. “Every team is going to have their ups and downs, their bumps and bruises. It will be how we respond to adversity. When we have our first road game, and the team makes a run, how will we respond? Will we splinter, or will we come together?”

Those answers will come soon, once the games begin.

This story was originally published October 29, 2014 at 8:34 PM.