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In the modern era, with NIL and instant transfers, it’s pretty easy for a coach to win in Year 1. Well, at the top of the sport, that is. When you get down to lower levels, what you find is that a) you don’t have the NIL resources that bigger schools have, and b) players […]
This Duke Basketball season has been immensely satisfying for Blue Devil fans, and that’s on both the men’s and women’s side. Both teams won regular season ACC Championships and on Tuesday, women’s coach Kara Lawson was named ACC Coach of the Year. It’s richly deserved. You’ll remember that when Duke played West Virginia on November […]
A crucial disclaimer: this article, by design, isn’t for everyone. There’s a large contingent of college basketball fans who loathe the incessant discussion of “resumes” and “bracketology” by the rotating panel of national talking heads. It’s a very reasonable perspective to take. Luckily for Duke fans in this camp, this year all the Blue Devils […]
Selection Sunday is drawing ever closer and on Monday morning, 68 teams can at least dream. Half of them will be gone in a big hurry, and by the next Monday, we’ll be down to the Sweet 16. It’s always an absolute blast of adrenaline to see the upsets. Yet while we tend to see […]
In Tuesday’s ACC Action, Wake Forest is at Virginia, Clemson travels up to Chapel Hill, Boston College jets down to Virginia Tech, and Syracuse is off to Louisville. It’s an interesting night, because so many of the coaches have some level of hot seat pressure. Steve Forbes has a bit for Wake Forest, Brad Brownell […]
Dave DeBusscherre is an underappreciated great of the game. Born in 1940 in Detroit, DeBusscherre was a talented basketball and baseball player. He attended the University of Detroit (now Detroit Mercy). Like Danny Ainge and Duke legend Dick Groat, DeBusscherre played professionally in both sports. Amazingly, in 1964-65, at the tender age of 24, he […]
It was another Blue Devil blowout as Duke destroyed NC State in Raleigh on Monday night. Jason and Donald recap the win on Episode 804! Dame Sarr was incredible as Duke clinched the ACC regular season title outright. His offensive surge was a huge boost for the Blue Devils. We discuss his big night as […]
We were a little wary about the trip to Raleigh, because State is a tough place to play. And when Ven-Allen Lubin opened with a dunk and Darrion Williams hit a couple of early shots, it looked like it might be one of those nights. Didn’t last long. Behind a great first offensive half from […]
As noted recently, we don’t write a whole lot about the polls, because it’s not really news, since Duke is nearly always rated. We do write about the polls when one of two things happens: 1) Duke is not rated or 2) Duke is #1. The Blue Devils hit #1 last Monday and are still […]
Fresh off a big win against Virginia, Duke has to turn it around very quickly to play NC State in Raleigh. We preview that game along with some other nuggets on DBR Bites #148. Duke has had some stinkers in Raleigh against the Wolfpack, but they’re hoping to buck that trend. NC State has a […]
Date 3/2 || Time 7:00 || Venue Lenovo Center || Video ESPN Update – State may be without backup big man Musa Sagnia Hellooooo, March! Duke only has two regular season games left: Monday’s trip to Raleigh and Saturday’s home finale vs. UNC. There’s an interesting coincidence floating around now if you haven’t seen or […]
No statistic more eloquently defines the season-long strength of the 2026 Duke men’s basketball squad than the fact that, through February, they won 27 of their first 29 games. And did so while undertaking one of the country’s toughest schedules. That said, other stats can be almost as persuasive. Start with scoring margin, a telling […]
Tyus Jones was born in 1996, and if you ever wondered why he was named Tyus, we’re going to explain it to you. In 1995, UCLA was the #1 team in the country in March and favored to win the tournament. However, it almost didn’t happen. UCLA was the #1 seed in the West and […]
Beating UNC is great but never easy, and so it went in Chapel Hill on Sunday night as the Tar Heels upset Duke, 74-69. This was a close game throughout and with just 3:51 to go, it was tied 60-60. UNC made the winning plays down the stretch, outscoring Duke by 5 points. It wasn’t […]
This just in, Duke is really, really good. Facing yet another big-time opponent, a team on the fringe of the top ten and a club touted as the second best in the ACC, the #1 ranked Blue Devils ran roughshod over #11 Virginia this weekend in a game that was mostly non-competitive. Jon Scheyer and his […]
In Saturday’s ACC Action, UNC topped Virginia Tech, 89-82; Clemson handled Louisville, 80-75; NC State bowed to Notre Dame in overtime, 96-90; Florida State got by Georgia Tech, 80-71; Miami hammered BC, 76-54; Pitt stunned Cal, 72-56; Wake Forest nipped Syracuse, 88-83; and Stanford spanked SMU, 95-75. NC State stuff, meet Will Wade. Will Wade, […]
In what was apparently a joint decision, the Dallas Mavericks have waived former Duke point guard Tyus Jones. For the Mavericks, it opens up a path to sign rookie Ryan Nembhard. The Gonzaga product was on a two-way and has exceeded expectations. As for Jones, he would like to be on a playoff team. If […]
Duke has had a banner year to date, and a big part of why it’s been so great is the defense. And there’s a lot to that. Caleb Foster and Isaiah Evans have vastly improved as defenders. Pat Ngongba is seriously underrated as a defender. And of course, Maliq Brown is a brilliant defender who […]
We thought Virginia was better than that. Whatever else we might have thought, we never thought that Duke would have a 28-point lead on a good Virginia team. And winning 77-51? Not what we expected – not at all. But that’s what happened as Duke wrapped up the #1 seed for the ACC Tournament. And […]
Honestly, we’d never heard of Eddie Links before. Great name, but we hadn’t heard of him. He advertises himself as a “High level Ball Knower,” and maybe he is. But what he says about Cayden Boozer seems really wrong. There’s no question that Cameron and Cayden are on different tracks. Cameron is much taller, 6-9 […]
In Saturday’s ACC Action, NC State visits Notre Dame, Florida State heads up to Atlanta to take on Georgia Tech, Louisville cruises over to Clemson, BC heads down to Miami, Pitt drops in on Cal on the West Coast swing, Syracuse checks in with Wake Forest, SMU gets Stanford, and Virginia Tech visits UNC. Here’s […]
This has been a season of hope for NC State. Will Wade’s team hasn’t been perfect, but it has certainly had its moments, notably an absolute destruction of UNC (albeit without Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar, but still, good for the Wolfpack soul). State has wandered in the desert often since the departure of Jim […]
Date 1/28 || Time 12:00 p.m. || Venue Cameron Indoor Stadium || Video ESPN Soon we’ll have votes for ACC honors and when it comes to ACC Coach of the Year, we think there are four legitimate candidates: Luke Loucks of Florida State, Jai Lucas of Miami, Jon Scheyer of Duke, and Ryan Odom of […]
If you ever wondered what 24 straight missed shots – Kevin Keatts, you can sit this one out – here’s your answer. St. John’s did this Wednesday night against UConn and while much of it was UConn’s defense, especially inside, a lot of it was just, for whatever reason, a bad shooting night by the […]
Duke bounced back from a last-second defeat at Clemson with a solid 80-52 win that clinched at least a share of the regular-season ACC championship. The Seminoles kept it close for the first half, down just 33-29 at the break. Duke dominated the third quarter, 22-11, and the fourth quarter as well, 25-12. Toby Fournier […]