(IE) - Notre Dame was six minutes away from being a legitimate national championship contender. You can either take gratification in that or have it ruin your spring and summer.

David Graves, finishing a magical Notre Dame career, prefers the former.

“I’m thrilled to death and couldn’t be happier, even though we lost,” said Graves. “There is nothing negative in our locker-room right now.”

The Irish led Duke, the top-seeded team in the NCAA Tournament, by seven points with six minutes and change to play Saturday afternoon in Greenville, South Carolina.   Notre Dame was playing confidently.  Beautifully.  This was really happening. Mike Brey’s team was going to beat Duke! 

“Let's face it," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewksi, “this game was lost.  Notre Dame had the lead and the momentum.”

But the Blue Devils have the pedigree and this victory, 84-77, over the best Notre Dame team in at least 15 years.  Duke, 31-3, moves on to the South Regional semifinals in Lexington, Kentucky.  Notre Dame, 21-11, goes home at the end of a productive season.

“We played Duke when I was a freshman,”said Graves, “and we lost by 50 (actually 29).  I’m thrilled that the program has come so far.”

But how far could the Irish have gone this year if it had finished the job Saturday.  Indiana?  Pittsburgh?  Those are the highest seeded teams that would have been blocking Notre Dame’s path to the Final Four.   The Irish were 2-0 against Pittsburgh and lost a heartbreaker at Indiana.  The future was now.

One gets the feeling that Notre Dame Nation is not thrilled. Particularly because the Irish did as much to give the game away as Duke did to win it.

But Mike Brey, after spending eight years on Krzyzewski’s bench, knows the Duke psyche. “There’s a fearlessness about them,” said Brey. “It’s a belief that it’s their destiny (to win the NCAA Tournament).”

And that belief is what Duke overcome a 71-64 lead with 6:23 to play.  Duke took the final six minutes by a 20-6 margin, 13 of the points coming from the foul-line.  The Blue Devils made clutch offensive moves and dug in on defense.  The Irish faltered.  They had 18 turnovers to only 13 assists, this from a team whose first five players all average more assists than turnovers.

Duke tied it at 71 with a 7-0 run over five possessions.  It was 75-all with 1:22 left when Harold Swanagan (13 points, five rebounds, three steals in one of his best career efforts) hit on an inside move.  But Swanagan then fouled out when he grabbed Jason Williams on a quick move to the hoop at 1:04.

Williams (20 points on five-for-20 shooting) hardly looked a Wooden Award candidate on this day, but he made the two free throws to give Duke the lead for good.  He made two more to make it 80-77 with 33.9 seconds left.   

Chris Thomas missed a rushed three and Daniel Ewing hit two free throws at 22.3 to make it a five-point game.  When Graves airballed a three on the next possession it was over.

“What I want to teach our guys is what Duke already knows,” said Brey. “When you put on the jersey, you don’t expect to lose.”

Notre Dame lost on a day when it overcame a six-point halftime deficit and had a spectacular 14-0 halftime run.  It earned a lot of respect in a nationwide CBS game, but it also needs to embrace the fact that there could have been so much more basketball this year.

Brey knows it.

“One of the things that I thought people had forgotten coming into this game was our age,” said Brey, referring to his team’s three senior starters. “We had that going for us. I told them before the game, ‘Hey, can you get me 85-90 points today? If you can, we win.’’’

Brey was right on.  Eighty-five would have kept the Irish on the dance floor.

But now it’s over.  Ryan Humphrey (15 points, 10 rebounds, six blocks and four assists) finishes an outstanding career that saw him play in four NCAA Tournaments.  But he’d still be playing if he had not missed a half-dozen point blank shots or lost his discipline in a late first-half exchange that led to a technical foul.

“Ryan had some great looks around the basket,” admitted Brey. “He missed some tough ones.”

Matt Carroll is destined to be one of the top players in the Big East next season and finished this season with a remarkable 20 point, 12 rebound effort.  But he didn’t see a wide-open Graves at 80-77 and instead drew a game-turning charging foul while trying to force the action inside.

Graves was four-for-eight on three pointers but did not get free for an open look the final nine minutes of the contest.  One or two more field goals and he would eating home cooked meals and playing in Lexington this coming weekend.

“When it became a half-court game at the end,” Brey said, “we had trouble getting to entries, getting clean looks for Matty and Dave.”

And then there was Thomas.  The Irish have asked for so much from their freshman point guard this year.  In the biggest game of his life to date, he put up some of the ugliest numbers – two-for-15 on field goals, eight turnovers and a key missed one-and-one during the final Duke run.

“Playing Duke, recruited by Duke a little bit, it was an enormous stage for him, “ said Brey. “When you run Williams and Chris Duhon at a freshman, and we have to keep him in there for 40 minutes, it’s tough.”

Five Duke players finished in double figures, but this story isn’t about the Blue Devils.   Coach K’s group is deservedly the standard by which all other Division 1 programs are measured by.  But, on this day, Notre Dame was better for all but the last six minutes.   One or two more favorable plays and the Irish are suddenly the lead story in USA TODAY on Monday, Tuesday and possibly beyond.

But now the Irish are just a historical footnote.  Brey lost to his mentor and now Krzyzewski is 14-0 against his former assistants.  The Blue Devils are 19-2 against Notre Dame.  If they go on to win the national championship, wags will point back to this game as the one that got the Dukies “focused.”

“I don’t think they played great defense all year,” Brey said of his former team. “When they were down seven and their life was flashing, they locked in.”

 Are you thrilled?

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THE NOTEBOOK:  Graves deserved to have a chance to get back to Lexington, Kentucky one more time.  He concludes his Notre Dame career as the only Irish player to accumulate 1500 career points, 300 assists, 200 steals and 600 rebounds.  He is seventh on the Irish all-time scoring list, ninth in assists, 22^nd in rebounds and, with two steals Saturday, tied David Rivers for all-time steals.  He is also ND’s career three-point leader…. Brey said, “Now that we’re out, it’s go Duke!  I told them to go get another one.”…Tom Timmermans had five points off the bench but an unfortunate foul on Boozer in the final Duke free-throw flurry.  Just another example of the Irish coming this close….Mike Dunleavy had 12 points for Duke, four on free throws with 16.3 seconds remaining before the half.    He was dragged to the floor by Humphrey in rebounding action and then Hump was whistled for a technical when he elbowed Dunleavy.    But Notre Dame quickly erased the halftime deficit by scoring 10 of the first 13 points of the second-half….Torrian Jones tried a behind-the-back pass in the first-half and now may get off the bench again for Brey sometime in mid-to-late December.  Nothing riles the coach more than lack of game intelligence…. The Irish have now lost their four games against top seeds in the NCAA – 81-74 to Georgetown in 1989 (R32), 74-68 to North Carolina in 1987 (R16), 80-68 to Michigan State in 1979 (Elite Eight), and this one…Thomas’ little brother Kyle stole the show in CBS’ pre-game feature on the freshmen, giving concise analysis worthy of Jack Nolan….Speaking of CBS, this was the first time Notre Dame played in an NCAA tournament game viewed by the entire nation since the March 25, 1978 national semifinal game against Duke.   Every other contest since has been a split broadcast….In 1986, ESPN had the rights to the tournament and showed every contest in its entirety.  Most, of course, were on delayed tape.  The Irish contest with Arkansas/Little Rock was aired at 3:30 a.m.  The 90-83 loss was the beginning of the end of the Digger Phelps era…..Duke is now 11-0 at neutral sites this season…..Brey on the Bi-Lo Center and Greenville. “It was almost like the Final Four the way they embraced us here,” he said. “And I think this is a beautiful facility.”