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WASHINGTON, D.C. — These kinds of locker rooms always feel the same.

Quiet. Empty. Managers silently shuffling by, wheeling bags of dirty laundry. Players zipping their hoodies all the way up, headphones on. Heads bowed, everyone in a rush to escape this place — this feeling — as quickly as humanly possible.

Which is exactly what Duke did Thursday. Well: the fleeing part, at least. The Blue Devils lost 74-69 to NC State in their only ACC tournament game — the program’s first ACC quarterfinal loss since 2016 — and were gone from Capital One Arena not even four hours after tipoff.

But this feeling?

If only Duke could leave it behind in D.C. as easily as it did empty water bottles.

Because the thing is, Duke didn’t just lose a basketball game on Thursday. It no-showed … again. It got out-toughed … again. “They just out-competed us, really,” said sophomore forward Mark Mitchell. “I can’t put a finger on it.”

Jon Scheyer’s team, less than a week after losing at home on Senior Night to its most-hated rival — which also, not for nothing, cost Duke a share of the ACC regular-season title — missed nine of its first 10 shots. After trailing by three at halftime, it returned out of the locker room … and allowed NC State, playing its third game in as many days, to rattle off a 6-0 run to start the second half. Scheyer didn’t even let three minutes elapse before called timeout, clearly unhappy with his team’s effort.

“Look, I can go through the details of the game. I think for us, though, it’s about the competitive fire you need to have in the postseason,” Scheyer said. “We didn’t have that collectively overall.”

How is that possible?

How, this late in the season — with four returning starters back, all of whom only returned for another postseason try — is that still an issue?

How, after Duke got punked in the second round by Tennessee in last season’s NCAA Tournament, is simple want-to a recurring problem?

“Just speaking back to Tennessee last year, they wanted it more than us,” sophomore forward Kyle Filipowski said in the locker room, unprompted. “We can’t be expecting to win. We can’t be entitled … We’ve got to want it more than the other team, because if not? Then it’s going to be the same situation as the second round last year. As tonight.”

It is a troubling trend, one larger than Xs and Os or shooting percentages. “All our losses have a common theme,” Mitchell said. “I don’t know if it’s just the Carolina game. You go back to Arizona, you can go to Arkansas, you can go to Pitt at home. Same story.” No matter how well Duke defends a ball screen, no matter if Filipowski goes off for 28 points like he did on Thursday, that is a fatal flaw.

It’s a roster construction issue, really. After Dereck Lively II, last season’s starting center, left to become a lottery pick by the Dallas Mavericks, Duke flirted with several replacement big men in the transfer portal last summer — but ultimately opted not to sign one. Instead, Scheyer has mostly played the 7-foot Filipowski at center, alongside a smaller three-guard lineup. The results have been mixed. Some dizzying five-out offense, yes, but also lackluster rim protection. It’s no coincidence that Duke is 0-5 this season when allowing 80 or more points.

That’s a manageable issue by comparison, though. One Scheyer, with his basketball acumen, can reasonably try to game-plan around.

But when you’re still coaching desire, two weeks into this month?

You’ve got bigger problems.

Much bigger problems.

Freshman Jared McCain was asked how a team changes its mentality this late in the season, now 32 games deep:

“I think just humility. Like, just being able to bring your ego down,” he said. “Take what we’re getting taught — what we’re getting yelled at maybe for — and actually embrace it, and use it for our motivation for these next games. Our next game could be our last, so we have to play like our season’s on the line. Because it is.”

A follow-up, then: Over the last week or so, entering its most critical stretch of the season, has Duke had the appropriate humility?

“I mean, for the past week, probably not,” McCain said. “Most of the season we’ve had it, especially because we have so much talent on this team. It’s almost hard to eliminate egos because we are really good. Everybody’s really good on this team. But for this past week — especially from the Carolina (loss) to this game — we weren’t able to translate what we learned to this game. So the humility wasn’t there this game.”

Added Mitchell, from two lockers down: “I think that’s definitely a little true. I don’t think any of us are selfish guys or think we’re too good for anything, but I think at times it’s human nature. We do that. We take things for granted, and I think it shows up in certain moments, at certain times. And all we can do is reflect on that and get it out of our system for next week.”

Scheyer likes to talk often — to his players, to reporters — about controlling what you can control. The work someone puts into their jump shot, for instance. A player’s willingness to dive on a loose ball.

“I don’t feel we handled what we could control tonight. No doubt in my mind,” Scheyer said. “If we want that feeling a week from now where you lose, or you exit the tournament, where you didn’t control what you could control, that would be a real shame.”

Some of the problem, clearly, lies with the players. He can’t control their energy, or how hard they fight through screens, or how willing they are to throw elbows for a contested rebound.

But some of the responsibility, too, has to lie with Scheyer. The 36-year-old has made a concerted effort since succeeding Mike Krzyzewski — the winningest coach in men’s college hoops history, who still maintains an office on the floor about Scheyer’s — to show that he’s his own man. An unflinching competitor — and one, as he’s displayed through two seasons, who is willing to experiment stylistically more than his predecessor.

But — of course there’s a but — the time certainly seems to have come for Scheyer to lean into one particular Krzyzewski-ism: bringing the hammer down. Krzyzewski’s grandson, Michael Savarino, told reporters before Krzyzewski’s last season that he learned every curse word he knew from his grandpa. Krzyzewski was — is — known for his fiery flare-ups, for his dramatic responses to lackluster effort. Scroll through old episodes of J.J. Redick’s podcast, and there are ample examples. Kicking players out of their home locker room. Not allowing them to wear Duke apparel. Making them run, and run, and run. The list goes on.

This is not to suggest that Scheyer need copy any of those specifically. But with this group, which clearly hasn’t grasped the lose-and-go-home mentality it’s about to face in the NCAA Tournament?

Yeah. It’s probably past time to get tough.

Plenty of teams have lost in their conference tournaments and gone on to win the national title. Heck, Connecticut did last year.

But no one was questioning UConn’s mentality on the eve of March Madness.

And now, days before Selection Sunday, that’s a legitimate concern for Duke. Maybe it has been all along.

“It would be a real problem if you didn’t believe in the team. I think it starts there,” Scheyer said. “Do you believe in the group you have? Do you believe in the team? And the answer is emphatically, 100 percent yes.”

We’re about to find out how well-placed that belief is.

(Photo of Kyle Filipowski and Ryan Young: Geoff Burke / USA Today)