And while the maturity and leadership skills, both on and off the court, have developed over time, Duncan has always been a quality player.

"I guess I've always loved [basketball]," Duncan says. "I've probably played since I was three. Of course when you're little you love all the sports, but I'd say by the time I was 10, 11, 12, I played only basketball. I'm 22 now, so that's about 20 years of playing."

Duncan captained the University High School team his senior year and earned Special Mention on the all-city and all-state teams by averaging 24 points, 11 rebounds, and nine assists per game.

With those kind of numbers Duncan felt ready for major college basketball, and set out looking for the biggest-name school that would offer him a scholarship. But at a summer hoop camp, the director took a "personal interest" in Duncan. "He told me it'd be stupid for me not to go to the Ivy League," Duncan reports. "Realistically, the pros were a long-shot, and you can't beat an Ivy education."

So Duncan looked East, and selected Penn--the defending Ivy champion--as his first choice. A Penn coach advised Duncan that he probably couldn't help the Quakers, so Duncan chose Harvard where "I thought I was really wanted."

His freshman year brought painful disillusionment. Duncan was axed in the final varsity cuts, and had to spend the year playing for the Crimson JV. "It about wiped me out," Duncan says. "I considered transferring after that year if I could play--basketball's too important to me to go to school and not play. That was a tremendous blow--that really hurt."

But after a lot of soul-searching and discussion ("I talked to [then head] Coach [Frank] McLaughlin, I talked to Coach Roby, I talked to the athletic director," Duncan said. "I talked to everybody.") Duncan stuck it out.

His goal for sophomore year was just to make the varsity squad, but he ended up a starting forward midway through the season.

That year marked two seasons of contention for Harvard basketball, two years in which the Crimson cagers came close to their first-ever league title only to falter late.

Duncan's role in those seasons was low-profile; Joe Carrabino and Bob Ferry were the stars and Duncan added 11 points a game. In his junior season, he was second on the team in rebounds and assists, and third in scoring. His 86.7 percent mark from the free throw line during his sophomore campaign was 13th in the nation.

Return to Cambridge

When Duncan returned from his year off, he faced a pair of tensions: the contrast between the inner-city and Harvard, and the contrast between the Harvard basketball team he had left and the one to which he returned.

"It's two completely different situations, from the style of the play to the personalities on the team," Duncan says. "It's two different eras in Harvard basketball."

McLaughlin had been replaced by Roby. A slow game had been replaced by an up-tempo offense and defense. And, most significant, Carrabino and Ferry had been replaced as the stars of the team by Webster--and Duncan himself.

"My dream was to come back and lead Harvard to the Ivy title," Duncan says with a touch of irony. "That was one of the reasons, I remember, that I wanted to come to Harvard--coach told me that Harvard had never won a championship and I've always thought of myself as a winner and I thought I could help lead Harvard to that first championship. So this year has been very tough on me--a lot of re-evaluation of myself."