Duke’s season wasn’t a disappointment based on the pre-season expectations; it was a joy based on the growth of these young men and the adversity they overcame.
There’s a type of Duke fan that is still furious the morning after the Blue Devils’ Elite 8 loss.
You know the kind: the Duke fan who is never happy unless the Blue Devils steamroll through the regular season and win the National Championship. The fan that second guesses every coaching move and questionable decision on the court. The fan that expected Jon Scheyer to be a clone of Coach K. And, unfortunately, the fan that loudly expresses those types of opinions all over social media.
Those fans expected Duke to go to the Final Four and win the National Championship back in the preseason. But here’s the thing: in a college basketball landscape still impacted by the COVID year of eligibility and the new era of NIL and unlimited transfers, such expectations are almost inevitably a fool’s errand.
Consider the pre-season AP Top 25, the poll that listed Duke as No. 2 and set those expectations so high. Pre-season No. 1 Kansas had one of its most disappointing years in recent memory and failed to reach the Sweet 16. Same for pre-season No. 4 Michigan State. Pre-season No. 5 Marquette was dominated in conference by UConn and was out in the Sweet 16. Two teams in the pre-season Top 15, Miami and Arkansas, didn’t even sniff the tournament field.
Just four of this year’s Elite 8 came from the pre-season Top 10: Duke, Purdue, UConn, and Tennessee. Incredibly, only three teams form the pre-season Top 10 even made their conference tournament championship game, and only UConn won their conference tournament title.
So did Duke fail to live up to expectations, or were those expectations relics of a bygone era?
The fact is, Jon Scheyer started his head coaching career in perhaps the most uncertain and unpredictable college landscape in history. The expectations that were placed on his second season at the helm were just as flawed as those that expected Kansas and Michigan State to dominate their respective conferences, and had UConn, one of the most dominant college teams in recent memory, projected to finish second in their own conference. Judging this Blue Devil team based on how they would’ve been expected to perform in the “old” world is borderline masochistic.
If you separate this team from those expectations, you can appreciate what this group accomplished. They faced an uphill battle as one of the youngest teams in the nation despite their prodigious talent. They were unable to find a rhythm all season based on a series of injuries to their most important pieces, and played the last month of the year without Caleb Foster, who started 15 games and was an invaluable sixth man when the team was fully healthy. They were left for dead after a demoralizing end of the season that saw them lose to North Carolina on senior night and to NC State in the team’s first game in the ACC Tournament.
A lesser group of men would have listened to those doubters and sleepwalked into the NCAA Tournament. They didn’t. They got Scheyer to his first Sweet 16 after taking care of business in the tournament’s first weekend, dominating back to back opponents after being trendy “upset picks” in each game. They then put together a performance for the history books against No. 1 seed Houston to send Scheyer to the Elite 8 in just his second season, showing the world once and for all that they were anything but “soft.” In doing so, they did something the Duke program hadn’t done in 3 decades: beat a higher seeded team in the NCAA Tournament.
Yes, the season ended unceremoniously in the Elite 8 against NC State. Yes, the second half performance was dreadful, perhaps the worst of the season. Yes, there will forever be “what if’s” that hound this team given the opportunity that was in front of them. But all that can be true and not negate what this team accomplished in all the games prior.
Led by a second year head coach, one of the youngest teams in the country got to the Elite 8. They earned a 4-seed (that, let’s be honest, should’ve been a 3) in the NCAA Tournament. They finished 15-5 in conference play. And they did it all in an environment that was, arguably, designed for them to fail (just ask John Calipari and Kentucky how that young team performed in March).
The future is still insanely bright in Durham. By all objective metrics this Duke team took a step forward from Scheyer’s first. Key pieces of this squad could still return to compliment what might be the most talented recruiting class since the one headlined by Zion Williamson, and face a more normal college landscape where fifth year COVID players are now an endangered species.
Don’t judge this Duke team based on the expectations. Judge them based on their journey. While the ending wasn’t quite what we hoped for, it was still a heck of a ride.
