Boston ? The course load Monique Currie took at Duke this spring includes the humanities class “Stratification of the Life,” a study of events in one’s personal history.

The Blue Devils’ player, who is working on her master’s degree and a national championship at the same time, has plenty of layers to her own story.

Currie started her career at Duke with a year on the sidelines because of a knee injury. Twice in her tenure, the Blue Devils came away empty from the Final Four. And before this season there was the lure of playing professionally.

Currie could have jumped to the WNBA last summer – she already earned her humanities degree – but chose to return for her final year of eligibility and one last shot at winning the first women’s basketball title for Duke.

She gets her chance tonight against ACC rival Maryland.

“I knew I had to come back for that to be a possibility,” she said. “I knew I made the right decision.”

Her comeback this summer meant rising each day at 5:30 a.m. to shoot baskets with her old high school coaches at the Bullis School in Washington. Known throughout her career as a slasher, Currie worked on her perimeter game – and it shows.

She leads the Blue Devils with 16.2 points a game and is second in 3s with 42. She’s doing it all with fewer minutes this season and that’s more than OK with her. She’s surrounded by one of the deepest teams in the nation.

“Before the season started Coach G (Gail Goestenkors) talked to me after I decided to come back. She said my minutes would go down and so in turn my numbers would go down so when I entered the game I need to be more efficient,” she said. “I don’t have to score 25 points for me to win. My team has really pulled me along on this ride.”

Goestenkors knew Currie would have been one of the top draft picks last summer. Instead, having her star back meant Goestenkors would get a player with another year of maturity whose role would be to make everyone around her better.

“We don’t run many plays for her at all, which is different than we had in the past. But the grand scheme was to make everybody feel important,” Goestenkors said. “So her minutes have gone down, her shots have gone down, her productivity per minute has gone up.”

No matter what happens tonight, Currie will have a job waiting for her the next day. The WNBA is holding its draft in Boston less than 24 hours after the final horn of the NCAA championship and Currie is projected as a top-five pick.