BLUE DEVILS NO LONGER HEAVENLY BLESSED.

Byline: Jon Wilner Daily News Staff Writer

They thought he would walk in, wave his wand, and all would be perfect again in Blue Devils land.

"A lot of people really believed that," Duke guard Chris Collins said Saturday, 27 hours before the Blue Devils' matchup with UCLA at Cameron Indoor Stadium. "But I don't think the team ever bought into it. We knew it would take hard work and changing the way we did things mentally.

"We had a lot of adversity last year, some injuries, and we lost a lot of close games. We realize we're not going to turn it around in one day, just because coach (Mike Krzyzewski) is back. The process of getting Duke basketball back to where it was is going to take a long time."

Krzyzewski's exhaustion-induced absence last season played a substantial role in the Blue Devils' historic collapse. Would they have finished 2-14 in the ACC with him at the helm, or lost a school record 18 games? Probably not. But it's equally unlikely that they'd have made their eighth Final Four appearance in 11 years.

From 1986-'94 Duke was the closest thing to a college hoops dynasty since John Wooden's reign. The Blue Devils had elite talent and one of the top coaches. But the success was also based on luck, good health and intangibles, including that mysterious ingredient called chemistry. And it was those elements, along with Krzyzewski, that vanished from the Blue Devils' bench during the tumultuous 1994-'95 season.

"The basketball gods that watched over us for so long just weren't there anymore," one Duke official said.

On the first day of practice, Collins, a major contributor on the 1994 NCAA runners-up team, broke his foot. He would eventually play in 28 games, but his timing and rhythm never returned, and he made just 30 percent of his shots.

At the end of the first semester sophomore forward Joey Beard, the jewel of a heralded recruiting class, transferred to Boston University. Beard, who attended the same high school as Grant Hill, became Duke's first major recruiting mistake in years.

And on Jan. 6, the Blue Devils departed for Georgia Tech without Krzyzewski, who would be out for the duration. Without him, Duke lost not just tactical expertise but a master motivator and personnel manager. Roles lost definition, infighting surfaced. And most apparent, Duke no longer had Krzyzewski's trademark toughness.

"We gave up when we realized we weren't going to be an NCAA Tournament team," junior guard Jeff Capel said.

Krzyzewski pronounced himself fit for the start of practice this season, but his team was not. Trajan Langdon, who last year became only the fourth Krzyzewski freshman to average double figures - the others: Mark Alarie, Johnny Dawkins and Hill - was forced to miss the season because of a stress reaction in his left knee.

The Anchorage native thus missed his homecoming in the Great Alaskan Shootout. But the Blue Devils won anyway, defeating Old Dominion, Indiana and Iowa, and vaulted to No. 12 in the national rankings.

A week later, Illinois ended the Blue Devils' 95-game homecourt winning streak against nonconference opponents, and reality returned. Insiders believe this is the least-talented Krzyzewski team since the early 1980s, before Dawkins and Alarie.

Why? When Dawkins left, there was Danny Ferry. Ferry begot Christian Laettner. Laettner begot Hill. Hill begot Cherokee Parks. Whenever one first-round draft pick departed, another was ready to grab the torch. But this year, there is no star.

The Blue Devils had lost four straight entering a game at North Carolina State, and all the doubts that dominated their '95 campaign had resurfaced. They had lost a slew of close games, were getting minimal production from their frontcourt and sporadic play from the perimeter.

But Collins' game-winning jumper, with five seconds left, changed it all. The Blue Devils have won seven of 11 since - including three straight - and are playing at their highest level since 1994. A victory today probably would secure an NCAA Tournament berth.