INDIANAPOLIS: Vogue in the early 1990s when it represented the college basketball of the familiar mainstays such as Christian Laettner, Grant Hill and Bobby Hurley, Duke spent a rousing Monday night in Lucas Oil Stadium proving it remains vogue in the mid-2010s when the great freshmen tend to come ready and leave early.

As they possessed enough to barge past Wisconsin in a late rush, win, 68-63, and secure Duke’s fifth national basketball championship, it grew difficult to keep up with Duke’s array of freshmen capable of standing on the largest stage and acting like they’d been there before. From the 4-minute 25-second mark of a tense game to the 1:24 mark, Duke made a 10-0 push fashioned almost completely, and appropriately, by freshmen. Before that, they had rebounded from a 48-39 deficit as they rode almost completely, and appropriately, on freshmen.

As a beacon of the game this far along in time, Duke showed how freshmen have evolved.

With freshmen stars Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow inconvenienced with foul trouble, and freshmen Tyus Jones and Grayson Allen climbing out of those big shadows, the exploits of the very young shook an old sport’s long history. Their efforts gave Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski his fifth national championship, pushing him into a happily lonely spot in second place behind only John Wooden, who won 10 at UCLA. They brought Duke itself into a tie for third place with rival North Carolina, behind UCLA (11) and Kentucky (8).

In the process, Duke had more freshmen than most people probably knew. While Okafor and Winslow sat through a precarious chunk of the second half, the afterthought freshman, Allen, became Duke’s energy source for a while, winding up with 16 points on 5-for-8 shooting. When Allen finished doing that, Jones lent the crushing blows. He made a quirky, off-balance three-point shot from the left of the top of the key to give Duke a 59-58 lead.

Then, with 1:20 left, in perhaps the game’s signature moment, he let rip a screaming three-point shot, and then he let out a guttural scream himself. That gave Duke a 66-58 lead, and that made probable Duke’s first title since 2010, with that one also in Indianapolis, and Duke’s third title in Indianapolis across 24 years, its first coming in 1991.

Yet as a theme Krzyzewski and players often uttered during their run through the tournament allowing only 56 points per game, Duke (35-4) seemed to generate its offense out of the energy of its defense. That defense left the Wisconsin offense, the nation’s most efficient, looking often clogged. In particular, it gave trouble to Sam Dekker, the multi-faceted 6-foot-9 athlete who had averaged 20.6 points through the Badgers’ first five tournament games, and had made 15 of his 30 three-point shots.

Dekker never seemed to get his desired space against Duke, and when he did take his three-point shots, he didn’t make them. He scored 12 points on 6-for-15 shooting, but he missed all six of his threes, looking especially frustrated after the sixth.

That left Wisconsin’s offense largely to Frank Kaminsky, its 7-foot senior and the national player of the year. As the game ground down for the Badgers (36-4) in a way it did not during their titanic upset of unbeaten Kentucky on Saturday, Wisconsin’s offense often consisted of Kaminsky trying to back in. He did score 21 points, but the 7 for 16 had the look of toil.

A senior who has leapt forward dramatically the last two seasons, Kaminsky wound up walking off dejectedly with his teammates as Duke’s coaches hugged in a scrum, Duke’s players rushed to midcourt and the streamers fell. Krzyzewski knew the feeling well. He just never knew it because of players so very young.