INDIANAPOLIS - Duke has played only a handful of teams this season that tried to zone the Blue Devils. It's logical given that this is again one of the best 3-point-shooting teams in the country.

Why bother with a zone defense if Duke is simply going to shoot over it?

Still, West Virginia is likely to try tonight when the teams play in the national semifinals at Lucas Oil Stadium. It has worked against outside-shooting teams in the past, so why not now?

The Blue Devils are going to find out that attacking West Virginia's 1-3-1 is quite different than what they've faced so far. Baylor played a 2-3 zone in last weekend's South Regional championship game and Duke got the ball into the soft spot in the middle and made hay.

There's not quite the same soft spot in the middle of the 1-3-1. Against that, the weak spot is generally on the baseline - provided, of course, that teams can get the ball to the baseline.

"I think we're going to have to try to attack it a lot more,'' said Duke's 7-foot-1 senior center, Brian Zoubek. "I'm not going to give away our game plan or anything like that, but we obviously have to be a lot more aggressive than we were at Baylor.

"We got stood up. We kind of just stood around passing it on the perimeter. We're going to have to try to get it inside as much as possible and really crash the boards. Because when they come over on the weak side, on the help side, it leaves the weak side open for offensive boards.''

Passing the ball around West Virginia's 1-3-1 is not for the faint of heart. This is not a passive zone that tries to keep the ball on the perimeter, but instead one that thrives on disrupting those around-the-horn passes.

That's because at the top of that zone is 6-9 Devin Ebanks and on the wings are 6-7 Da'Sean Butler and 6-8 Kevin Jones. Wellington Smith, at 6-7, is in the middle.

"It's their length and athleticism,'' Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "They have Ebanks up on the top. He has a seven-foot wingspan. Then Jones and Butler on the wings, they take away vision. Instead of looking at them, you better focus on who you're supposed to pass to. So it's a defense that fits well for their personnel.

"We've worked on it. We feel comfortable attacking it in practice. But we can't simulate that length. So you won't know that. Length and speed are two things that you can't simulate when you're practicing. They have great length on that zone.''

Again, though, that length stops at the back end. That's where West Virginia generally stations 6-2 point guard Joe Mazzulla. The Mountaineers can get more size at the back end by subbing in John Flowers, but in doing so they lose their best ball-handler and penetrator on the other end.

Mazzulla's general attitude at the back of the zone is to fight much bigger guys in hand-to-hand combat, denying them position if he can and pushing them away from the basket so that if they do get the ball there is time for help to arrive. He did that a week ago against 6-11, 270-pound DeMarcus Cousins and Kentucky.

"It just depends on how they try to attack it,'' Mazzulla said. "I don't think Kentucky really made it a point to try to get the ball to Cousins. I think Zoubek and [Miles and Mason Plumlee] are more active on the defensive end. We'll have to work harder to try to keep the ball off of their hands. [Jon] Scheyer and [Nolan] Smith are good at getting into the lane. We'll just have to try to contain them.

Much of the success of the 1-3-1 - and for the Mountaineers as a whole - might simply depend upon how the game is called. Sometimes Mazzulla gets the benefit of the doubt battling much bigger players under the basket. Other times he doesn't. Fouls eventually caught up with him against Kentucky and he missed virtually the entire final seven minutes of the game.

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.