From the Villanova piccolo player with a tear in her eye after her team lost, to Georgia St. head coach Ron Hunter falling off his stool in joy after his son made a game-winning three point shot, March Madness is about so much more than crowning a champion. And college basketball is about so much more than March Madness. The story of this season will always be Lauren Hill, battling brain cancer, and inspiring us all with her determination to still play basketball. Maybe that is why some of us live for that first note of Luther Vandross in the overly-sentimental "One Shining Moment" video montage. The eventual national champion makes up a significant part of that video, but they are still only a small fraction of our memories.

But Monday's championship game was no afterthought. It was a genuinely captivating match-up. Duke always brings eye-balls and ratings. Some fans hate the team's confident/arrogant attitude. Some adore Mike Krzyzewski's win-with-stars but win-the-right way system. But everyone wants to see Duke play. And Duke was probably the less captivating team on Monday. Fans were tuning in en masse to answer the heart-wrenching question of whether the Wisconsin Badgers, fresh off ending Kentucky's undefeated season, would complete their magical run.

I think a lot of the neutral observer sentiment favored Wisconsin heading into the game because many felt that Wisconsin was more deserving. After Wisconsin beat the teams with the #2 and #1 margin-of-victory in the country in back-to-back games, it sort of felt like Duke would be stealing the title if the Blue Devils won. The Blue Devils would not have "earned it" since they were not the ones to knock off Kentucky.

But Duke had plenty of unbelievable wins this year. Duke won at Wisconsin in December. They won at Virginia when Justin Anderson was still healthy. They beat Gonzaga and Utah in the NCAA tournament. And they beat Wisconsin again in the Final. Those five road/neutral victories over teams with Top 10 margin-of-victory numbers provide plenty of legitimacy to Duke's season. And that doesn't even include things like sweeping North Carolina, sweeping Michigan St. in two neutral site games, and getting a 30 point home win over a Notre Dame team that played Kentucky down to the wire. Duke certainly did not lack for legitimacy.

In fact, when you crunch the numbers, since Rasheed Sulaimon was kicked off the team in late January, Duke somehow raised its level of play. The Blue Devils finished the season on an 18-1 run. And to give you one final split this season, Duke adjusted offense and defense in that stretch was 125.9 and 91.4 for a Pythagorean Winning Percentage of 0.9755. Duke matched Kentucky’s season long numbers and played like the best team in the country over the final stretch of the year. The Blue Devils absolutely played like a team deserving of a title.

Even when Wisconsin was nursing a lead in the middle of the second half, it never quite felt like the Badgers night. Sam Dekker’s shot was off all night, including a couple of terrible airballs. Wisconsin started the game off 2 of 6 from the free throw line. Wisconsin wasn’t turning the ball over a ton, but they were getting their shots blocked and those were leading to run-outs that were just like turnovers.

I talked in the last game about how Wisconsin took advantage of every mismatch against Kentucky. But those same plays were not there on Monday night. At one point Nigel Hayes posted up Tyus Jones, and blew the essentially wide-open lay-up.

For Wisconsin, the point guard spot was a weakness all day. It seemed like Traevon Jackson and Bronson Koenig were alternating a game of “Who could get pulled from the game next?” As much as I praised Jackson in the semifinal game, his drives in the first half into traffic were terrible judgement. He ended up 1 of 7 and for a Wisconsin team that is so efficient with the ball, they would love to have those possessions back. And Koenig had his own struggles on defense.

But to criticize Wisconsin for being a little off, or a little out of gas, overlooks how incredibly well Duke played. Duke’s Tyus Jones was huge against Wisconsin again. What was amazing is how his performance flipped the script from the first game. In December at Wisconsin, Jones relentlessly took the ball to the basket. In this game, with Wisconsin playing him for the drive, Jones hit two huge three pointers late in the game. That is the sign of a true champion, the ability to exploit whatever the defense makes available.

Jahlil Okafor didn’t quite play like a champion. He missed a number of easy inside baskets that he normally makes, and he was in foul trouble from the beginning of the game, when he was called for an early charge. He was struggling for the third time in the NCAA tournament. And yet he chose not to hang his head. Re-entering the game in the final minutes, Okafor first posted up Frank Kaminsky and got the bucket and foul. Then a possession later, he had a massive put-back that swelled the Duke lead to 5. Even on one of his worst nights, Okafor was not going to quit on this team.

But of course the story of the game was Duke’s Grayson Allen. Allen turned the game with his six straight points when Duke went down nine. He hit a long-range three and old-fashioned three to personally cut the lead to three. But it was his steal, fighting Traevon Jackson for the ball in the middle of that mini-run, that really set the tone. Allen was not a shell-shocked freshman, forced into playing time by foul trouble. He was a confident, polished player ready for the spotlight.

During the post-game show, Kenny Smith said something to the effect of, “Everyone keeps talking about these great recruiting classes that Kentucky has, but Duke has the best freshmen class in the country.” It is amazing when Duke gets so much press that people haven’t said that more often this year. With Grayson Allen putting his stamp on the semifinal and final, it is really hard to argue that Allen, Tyus Jones, Justise Winslow and Jahlil Okafor are not one of the most dominant freshmen classes of all time.

There is no formula for winning in the one-and-done era, but Mike Krzyzewski at least understands the formula that he thinks works. You need to have some smart veteran players like Quinn Cook, but you have to be prepared to win, knowing that your best players are going to be freshmen.

Some coaches are system coaches. But Krzyzewski is an adapter. He has won in multiple eras. John Wooden might have won more titles, but Wooden won in a single era with a single set of rules and style of play. Mike Krzyzewski has shown that he can beat UNLV and win a title in an era with full court play, and that he can beat Wisconsin and win a title in an era with precision half-court play. He has shown that he can win a title with players that develop over four years like Brian Zoubek, and that he can win a title with players that are great from the start like Jahlil Okafor. He is truly a coaching legend.