The last time a University of Wisconsin basketball team played for the National Championship, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in office, Pearl Harbor had yet to be attacked and the current generation of Badgers’ grandparents were still in their infancy.

Unfortunately for Wisconsin, 1941 also remains the last time the Badgers claimed a title. The biggest reason why is a pair of Duke Blue Devils guards named Tyus Jones and Grayson Allen.

While much of the talk regarding Monday’s title game focused on the impending matchups of Jahlil Okafor versus Frank Kaminsky and Justise Winslow against Sam Dekker, it was the performance of Duke’s perimeter players that made all the difference in the Blue Devils’ 68-63 victory.

Midway through the second half, Bo Ryan’s team seemingly had matters in control. They held a 48-39 cushion after a pretty inbound pass from Josh Gasser found Kaminsky for a layup with 13:23 remaining on the clock. At that juncture, Wisconsin clearly had established momentum behind a sea of howling, red-clad fans inside Lucas Oil Stadium.

That was when Allen and Jones began to take over. And it was one of the only times in 2014-15 that a lack of quickness on the perimeter came back to haunt the Badgers.

Allen began the Duke comeback by scoring eight straight points to bring the Blue Devils within 51-47. Jones then converted an improbable, one-handed, three-point play over Bronson Koenig to make it a 51-50 score with 10:42 left in regulation. By then, the stage had been set for what looked like a dead-sprint to the finish between the two sides.

Wisconsin still hand their chances to retake control of matters down the stretch. Even after Jones’ three-point play, Kaminsky responded with a three-point effort of his own on the next possession to up the Badgers’ lead to 54-50. Dekker also made what appeared to be a key play at the 4:25 mark, scoring off a feed from Gasser to give Wisconsin a 58-56 edge.

The Badgers would never lead again, however, as Jones simply took over down the stretch.

Duke’s gifted playmaker knocked down a three-pointer over Koenig on the next possession, giving the Blue Devils the lead for good at 59-58. He would go on to add another killer three following two straight inside scores from Okafor, providing Duke with an insurmountable 66-58 edge at the 1:24 mark.

From there, Wisconsin could only watch at the Blue Devils celebrated a fifth national title in the Mike Krzyzewski era. The loss not only ended the Badgers’ bid for a second national title in program history, it also exposed Wisconsin’s only noticeable weakness — a lack of perimeter quickness.

Perhaps it should have been expected considering Jones scored 22 points against the Badgers in Duke’s 80-70 win at the Kohl Center back in December. On Monday, Jones went one better, netting a game-high 23 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field while connecting on 7-of-7 from the charity stripe. In the two teams’ first meeting, Jones was 7-of-11 from the floor and 6-of-8 from the free throw line — eerily similar numbers considering the circumstances.

When all was said and done, Wisconsin simply lacked the ability to keep Jones and Allen, who scored 16 points off the bench, from getting into the paint on a consistent basis. Even when the Badgers managed to cut off driving lanes, Jones and Allen combined to knock down three treys that effectively took the wind out of Wisconsin’s sails.

It’s a disappointing ending for Ryan’s team considering all that Wisconsin achieved in 2014-15. The Badgers won a school-record 36 games, claimed both the Big 10 regular season and tournament titles, and advanced back to the Final Four for a second straight season. In doing so, Wisconsin proved equal parts efficient and resilient. They also displayed the ability to play from either ahead or behind while taking down the country’s flashiest team in Kentucky on Saturday evening.

Ultimately, Wisconsin’s lone deficiency came back to haunt them in the Championship game. For the time being, it undoubtedly serves as a bitter pill for what will be a sad journey back to Madison.

Matt Johnson is a Big 10 basketball writer for www.rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter at mattytheole or “like” him on Facebook.