Tim Duncan won’t take the bait on Capel

OU basketball coach Jeff Capel told some good stories Tuesday – all flattering — about Tim Duncan. Capel had mentioned a couple of weeks ago how Wake Forest got all the calls back in the mid-’90s, when Duncan was at Wake and Capel was at Duke.

I thought that was the height of irony — a Duke player complaining about protected officiating — but Capel says Duncan was protected and that a defender couldn’t touch Wake point guard Randolph Childress without being called for a foul.

Anyway, I busted Capel about that, and he said these days, Duke might be a protected team, because of the status of Mike Krzyzewski. But back in the ’90s, North Carolina was protected because of the status of Dean Smith. “Have you ever seen a technical foul reversed?” Capel asked. He has, on Carolina’s Rasheed Wallace, for hanging on the rim. Capel still shakes his head at the reversal.

Anyway, Capel started telling some good Duncan stories, how Duke’s game plan was to NOT make Duncan mad. One Duke-Wake game, Duke was in command, and the Duke crowd started chanting “over-rated!” Duncan, to Capel’s best memory, went from about nine points and nine rebounds with 10 minutes left to 27 points and 17 rebounds.

Another time, Duke’s Greg Newton called Duncan “soft” after a Duke-Wake game. The next time the teams played, Duncan wasn’t any more aggressive than usual. Then Kryzewski inserted Newton in the game. “Duncan had like four straight dunks,” Capel said. “I kept yelling over to the bench, ‘Get him (Newton) out! Get him out!’”