No do-overs. No mulligans.
The Duke men aren’t exactly entering the 2024 NCAA Basketball Tournament on a hot streak. Duke has lost its last two games to teams that are older, deeper and more physical.
Like pretty much everybody else in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
If you’re looking for some reassurance from the history books, well, it’s pretty somber. Mike Krzyzewski lost his ACC Tournament opener nine times. We can dispense with the first three, although his first in 1981, was fifth-seeded Duke losing to fourth-seeded Maryland. The next two seasons saw two of the worst defeats in Duke history, 88-53 to Wake Forest in 1982 and 109-66 to Virginia in 1983.
But the other six came after Krzyzewski had established his program. For the record, we’re looking at 1987 (NC State), 1993 (Georgia Tech), 1996 (Maryland), 1997 (NC State), 2007 (NC State) and 2013 (Maryland). All six of these Duke teams were ranked at some point during the season and all but the 1996 loss was an upset; that team was so ravaged by injuries that walk-on Stanley Brunson played 22 minutes in Duke’s NCAA loss to Eastern Michigan.
But that 1997 Duke team started Danny Ferry, Tommy Amaker, Kevin Strickland, Billy King and John Smith. The 1993 team started Bobby Hurley, Grant Hill, Cherokee Parks, Grant Hill and Tony Lang. The 1997 team included Roshown McLeod, Trajan Langdon, Jeff Capel, Chris Carrawell and Wojo. Ten years later a Duke team that included Josh McRoberts, DeMarcus Nelson, Jon Scheyer and Greg Paulus again fell to the Wolfpack. The 2013 team included Mason Plumlee, Seth Curry, Quinn Cook, Ryan Kelly, Rasheed Sulaimon and Amile Jefferson.
So, we’ve established that the greatest coach of all time took some talented teams into the ACC Tournament and came home without a win, even as a favorite.
That’s a good thing? Right?
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