Surprising Wojo becomes a key

Duke little man assumes big role

You see the guy you're matched against and start to drool. He's slow. He's short. He can't jump. He rarely scores. And what kind of name is Wojciechowski?

Easy day, you think.

Then the game starts, and while you spend 40 minutes in hell with this irritating, blond-haired monster chasing you around, you hear this:

"Woof, woof, woof, woof. BALL! Woof, woof. BALL! BALL! BALL! Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof. BALL! BALL! Woof, woof."

The calls of "BALL!" are Steve Wojciechowski's way of trying to distract you. The incessant woofing is the Duke students' way of showing their appreciation of Wojo's work.

You finish the game with six turnovers.

"I definitely try to get guys thinking about me, where I am, and what's this Polish kid going to do to me next," the Duke junior said. "If I can get a guard thinking about me instead of thinking about what he can do to help his team win, that makes the game a lot easier."

Wojciechowski has made Duke's season a lot easier. Coming into the season, everyone wanted to know who would play point guard. Ten games into the season, nobody is asking that question anymore.

"I think it's obvious that Steve's been our most consistent player," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "If you had to pick a most valuable player so far, it would be Steve. I don't think anybody on our team would differ with that."

And no one on the team would argue that Wojciechowski's play so far is the biggest surprise for the 12th-ranked Blue Devils, who end their holiday break by hosting Western Carolina on Monday at 7:30 p.m.

In 10 games, Wojciechowski has 62 assists and 19 turnovers, a ratio of more than 3-to-1, with at least five assists in nine of Duke's 10 games. He's scoring seven points a game, twice his career average.

He also has 32 steals, which isn't bad considering he had 29 all of last season, and 32 rebounds, which also isn't bad considering he's 5 feet 11.

It's gotten to the point that people are making comments like this one from TV analyst Dan Bonner during Duke's win over Davidson on Dec. 11. "If Davidson is going to make a comeback," Bonner said, "now's the time to do it, with Wojciechowski on the bench."

Duke (8-2) can't afford to have Wojciechowski on the bench. That's quite a twist for a player who spent plenty of time there at the end of his freshman year.

When Krzyzewski left the team because of back problems and exhaustion during the 1995 season, no player suffered more than Wojciechowski. He went from a starter to a non-factor for the Blue Devils, and his confidence hit an all-time low. To complicate matters, his high school coach, Ray Mullis, died during the season.

"I went from playing a lot to never playing," he said. "I didn't handle it well because I've never been through something like that. Your confidence goes down because you're going through a situation you've never been through before and it's not working out for you."

In his sophomore season, Wojciechowski bounced back to become an able sub for starters Chris Collins and Jeff Capel. Still, that appeared to be his role -- a backup who could provide a few quality minutes off the bench -- and the Duke coaches recruited hard to find a point guard. Going into the season, they expected Wojciechowski to be a role player.

"From last season and in the summer," Krzyzewski said, "there's nobody who would have predicted [his performance]."

Wojo lost 20 pounds while spending the summer working on his game. When he showed up for Duke's preseason pickup games, his teammates were immediately impressed.

Krzyzewski met individually with each player and asked every member of the team to pick a starting five. Every player named Wojciechowski.

"A lot of times, the respect you gain from your teammates, you don't have to wait until practice starts," the coach said. "You can get it from pickup games and in the weight room. Steve already had that when we started on Oct. 15."

It didn't waver once the season started. He had a career night in the second game of the season, Duke's 86-57 win over Vanderbilt, with 12 points, six assists, eight steals and no turnovers.

At one point, Wojciechowski had so disrupted the Vanderbilt backcourt that one of the Commodores' guards started playing with his head. Literally.

"I put my head in the guy's chest, and he started playing with my hair," Wojo said. "I was thinking, 'Wow.' I kind of realized then, this guy's in pretty bad shape. He's looking for anything to do to get one up on me."

What happened after that?

"I think he ended up falling," he said, "and I got a steal."

When the Blue Devils had a team meeting to discuss their crushing, 62-61 loss to Michigan, Wojciechowski was the first to stand and speak.

"I'm one of the more naturally vocal guys on the team," he said. "It's just something that comes naturally for me. I wanted to start the meeting off right and make sure everyone's on the same page."

For all of his contributions to the team, though, he knows he still has to prove that he can maintain his level of play during the ACC season. In Duke's only ACC game so far, against Florida State, he played 39 minutes but had more turnovers than assists (five to three) for the first and only time this year.

If he succeeds, you'll know it by looking at the box score -- and by the faces of the opposing point guards. Not too many college basketball players describe their "perfect game" as this:

"One or two open shots, not taking more than three or four shots, hitting some free throws at the end of the game, having between eight or nine assists, three or four steals, and throw in a couple of rebounds, too," Wojciechowski said. "And then every loose ball."