The Shot That Silenced Duke: Another March Heartbreak.
Written By: Kekoa O’Neil
Contributor | Sideline Society Media
One of the most storied college basketball schools known, the Duke Blue Devils. Ever since the early 80s which was shortly after Mike Krzyzewski took over head coaching duties, they have taken over the college basketball world by storm. Producing numerous amounts of NBA talent and top draft picks such as Kyrie Irving, Zion Williamson, Jayson Tatum, Grant Hill and so many more, all the top recruits coming out of high school want a chance to say they played for Duke and under “Coach K”. Across his legendary, highly successful coaching career he has won 5 NCAA championships which puts him second all time only behind John Wooden for the second most all time.
Even after coach Krzyzewski retired in 2022 and former player and assistant coach Jon Scheyer took over head coaching duties, the number of top recruits committing to Duke year after year has not decreased in number at all. Since 2022, Jon has recruited an astounding fourteen 5 star high school recruits to come to Duke maintaining a dominant recruiting presence even post Coach K. With the number of top recruits that have been at Duke post Coach K and even at the end of his tenure, the Blue Devils last NCAA championship came in 2015. Knowing said information, it begs the question if talent equates to wins, especially at the college level.
With the new NIL age, many top freshmen are spending one year in college and leaving for the NBA draft the following year. As a result we have also seen older teams with Juniors, Seniors or even Graduate students in their starting lineup win the most recent NCAA championships. Even knowing this, it seemed as if the high level freshmen talent on the Blue Devils’ roster the past two years would be enough to get them over the hump to capture their first title since 2015. To the heartbreak of Blue Devil fans it has been the complete opposite with Duke losing in the Final Four and the Elite 8 in consecutive years in heartbreaking fashion.
Two years ago, Duke had as high as a 92.3% chance to beat Houston in the final four leading with 64-58 with 1:24 to go in the second half only to squander that lead and eventually lose the game 70-67. This past year the highly favored number 1 overall seed Blue Devils were leading the Connecticut Huskies 70-68 with only 10 seconds remaining only to have a costly turnover by Freshman Cayden Boozer leading to a miraculous game winning 3 pointer from near half court by freshman Braylon Mullins on Uconn. What’s even more impressive was that this was his first 3 pointmake of the entire game as he was previously 0/4.
These past two losses leave the college basketball world questioning if the Blue Devils will ever get over the hump and capture that long awaited championship that happened over a decade ago. Even with the success of Jon Scheyer leading Duke to a highly impressive 69-6 record over the past two seasons it remains in question if he has the ability to get his team to perform in the clutch and close out games when they matter most. All this being said it’s not a matter of if but when for one of college basketball' s most successful schools.
