49 Fun Facts About Duke Basketball

Duke won three of its five national titles in which city?

Indianapolis staged the 1991, 2010 and 2015 wins, the first coming a year after Duke lost the final by 30 points. The other two titles, in 1992 and 2001, both came in Minneapolis.

Duke's Blue Devils are named after World War I mountain troops from which country?

France's Chasseurs Alpins were nicknamed "les Diables Bleus", and their blue capes and berets caught the public eye when units toured America raising war funds. The student paper adopted the name in 1922-23.

Which 2024 NBA champion with the Boston Celtics played his only college season at Duke in 2016-17?

Jayson Tatum was the player Boston wanted all along: the Celtics traded away the first pick of the 2017 draft, moved down to third and took him anyway.

Which No. 15 seed, led by CJ McCollum's 30 points, stunned Duke in the 2012 NCAA tournament?

Lehigh won 75-70 in Greensboro, in Duke's home state, for the first NCAA tournament victory in the school's history.

Money from which bowl game, reached by Duke's unbeaten 1938 football team, helped pay for Cameron Indoor Stadium?

Rose Bowl money from January 1939 went into the $400,000 arena. Duke's "Iron Dukes" had not allowed a point all season, then lost 7-3 to USC on a late touchdown pass.

What is the tent city where Duke students camp for seats outside Cameron Indoor Stadium called?

Krzyzewskiville is said to date to 1986, when about fifteen students pitched camp on a Thursday to be first in line for a weekend game, and others quickly copied them.

The Cameron Crazies are credited with popularising which famous taunt in 1979?

The "air ball" chant is traced to February 24, 1979, when North Carolina held the ball for most of the first half, finally shot and missed everything. Duke led 7-0 at halftime and won 47-40.

Coach K turned down which NBA team's offer in 2004?

The Lakers' general manager Mitch Kupchak made the offer, reportedly five years and $40 million, after Phil Jackson left. Krzyzewski said no and coached Duke for 18 more seasons.

Which coach did Mike Krzyzewski play point guard for in college?

Bob Knight later hired him as an assistant at Indiana, and in 2011 Krzyzewski's 903rd win took his old coach's record for the most victories in Division I men's basketball.

In which city was Mike Krzyzewski born?

Chicago is where his father, born William Krzyzewski, ran a downtown elevator under the name Kross and owned a bar, Kross Tap, that young Mike cleaned on Sundays.

Where did Krzyzewski win his record 903rd game in 2011 and later his 1,000th?

Madison Square Garden saw both: win 903 in 2011 took the Division I record from his own mentor, and win 1,000, over St. John's in 2015, was a total no men's coach at that level had reached.

Whom did Duke beat in the 1991 final to win its first national title?

Kansas lost 72-65 in Roy Williams's first title game as a head coach. He later spent 18 seasons in charge of Duke's archrival, North Carolina.

Whom did Duke upset 79-77 in the 1991 Final Four, a year after losing to them by 30?

UNLV came in 34-0, and the defeat ended a 45-game winning streak. A year earlier the same team had beaten Duke 103-73, the widest margin a title game has seen.

Which North Carolina star's nose was broken by Gerald Henderson's elbow in the final seconds of a 2007 rivalry game?

Tyler Hansbrough got up with blood streaming from his nose and Henderson was ejected. Both men later called it an accident, and Hansbrough played the ACC tournament in a face mask.

Which coach left the inbounds passer unguarded with 2.1 seconds left before "The Shot" in 1992?

Rick Pitino put an extra defender on the catch instead of the ball, so the full-court pass was thrown freely. Weeks earlier at Wake Forest, Duke had tried the same play and the pass went astray.

Which freshman-led team did Duke beat in the 1992 final to repeat as champions?

Michigan's Fab Five, five freshman starters including Chris Webber, led 31-30 at halftime. Duke then won the second half 41-20 to take the title 71-51.

Which US squad had a Duke senior as its only college player?

The 1992 Olympic Dream Team kept one place for a college player, and Duke's national player of the year got it ahead of Shaquille O'Neal. The other eleven were NBA stars.

Which Duke point guard held the NCAA career assists record with 1,076 for 33 years?

Bobby Hurley's record stood until Purdue's Braden Smith passed it in the 2026 NCAA tournament. Months after leaving Duke, Hurley nearly died when his car was broadsided as he drove home from an NBA game.

Which freshman led Coach K's final Duke team in scoring before going first in the 2022 NBA draft?

Paolo Banchero also holds an Italian passport and had been named in Italy's squad in 2020. In 2023 he chose to play for the United States instead, to the fury of Italy's federation.

Whom did Duke beat 82-72 in the 2001 final for its third title?

Arizona had closed to within two early in the second half when Mike Dunleavy Jr. hit three three-pointers in an 11-2 run. He led Duke with 21 points.

Who was the consensus national player of the year on Duke's 2001 championship team?

Shane Battier scored 25 points in the semifinal as Duke climbed out of a 39-17 hole against Maryland, then was named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player.

Which Duke sharpshooter set the ACC career scoring record and became an NBA head coach in 2024?

JJ Redick got the job with no coaching experience beyond his son's fourth-grade team. At Duke his 2,769 points had broken an ACC record that stood for 51 years.

Whom did Duke beat 61-59 in the 2010 national final?

Butler was playing the final in its own home city, and Gordon Hayward's half-court shot at the buzzer, which would have won the title, only just missed.

Who captained Duke's 2010 national championship team as a senior guard?

Jon Scheyer shared the captaincy with Lance Thomas that season, and twelve years later he succeeded Mike Krzyzewski as Duke's head coach.

Whom did Duke beat 68-63 for its fifth title in 2015?

Wisconsin had knocked out the unbeaten, 38-0 favourite two nights earlier and led Duke by nine in the second half, before freshmen Grayson Allen and Tyus Jones turned the final around.

Which Duke star was born in Melbourne, Australia?

Kyrie Irving's father was playing professional basketball in Australia when he was born. A toe injury limited him to 11 games at Duke, and he still went first in the 2011 NBA draft.

Which company's shoe split apart under Zion Williamson in the opening minute of Duke's 2019 game against North Carolina?

Nike watched its shoe tear open with Barack Obama in the crowd, and Williamson left with a sprained knee. The company's shares fell the next day.

Which NBA team drafted Zion Williamson first overall in 2019?

New Orleans Pelicans won the draft lottery with only a 6 percent chance, less than four months after their star Anthony Davis had asked to be traded.

Which Duke freshman from Maine was the first overall pick in the 2025 NBA draft?

Cooper Flagg skipped a year of high school to arrive early, so he played most of his only Duke season at 18. He was national player of the year, then NBA Rookie of the Year with Dallas.

Which Duke big man was the first Coach K player drafted first overall, in 1999?

Elton Brand left after a sophomore season as national player of the year. His Duke team went 37-2 and unbeaten in the ACC, then lost the title game to Connecticut by three points.

Which team beat Duke 81-77 in the 2022 Final Four in Coach K's last game?

The Tar Heels had never met Duke in an NCAA tournament before that night, and a month earlier they had spoiled Krzyzewski's final home game as well.

Duke's fiercest rival plays about eight miles from its campus in which North Carolina town?

Chapel Hill is ten miles from Duke by road, on a stretch of rival campuses nicknamed Tobacco Road after the crop that once drove the region's economy.

Whose buzzer-beating three-pointer won Duke's 2012 game at North Carolina?

Austin Rivers hit it with Duke two behind, completing a comeback from ten down with just over two minutes left. Seconds earlier a North Carolina player had accidentally tipped a Duke shot into the basket, handing Duke two points.

Which Duke star, the 1952 national player of the year, later won baseball's National League MVP award?

Dick Groat also played a season for the NBA's Fort Wayne Pistons after his baseball debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1960 he won the batting title, the MVP award and the World Series.

Which coach took Duke to its first Final Four in 1963?

Vic Bubas, known as an innovative recruiter, drew talent from across the country and lured Art Heyman away from North Carolina. He quit coaching at just 42, after three Final Fours in four years.

Duke left which conference in 1953 to help found the ACC?

Southern Conference rules had banned its teams from football bowl games, one reason seven schools walked out together. Two decades earlier, thirteen others had left it to form the SEC.

What was Duke University called when basketball arrived on campus in 1906?

Trinity College lost that first game 24-10 to Wake Forest. It took its present name in 1924, after tobacco magnate James B. Duke set up a $40 million endowment.

Which Duke star scored 58 points in one game in 1988?

Danny Ferry set that school record against Miami and led the first two of Duke's five straight Final Fours. Drafted second by the Clippers in 1989, he refused to join them and spent a season in Italy instead.

Coach K's 1,202 career wins began with 73 at which school, where he played?

Army made him head coach at 28, six years after he graduated from West Point. He went 9-17 in his last season there, and Duke hired him anyway.

To which team did Duke lose the 1994 championship game?

Arkansas broke a 70-70 tie when Scotty Thurman's three-pointer beat the shot clock with 50.7 seconds left, and won 76-72 for the school's first national title.

Which Duke freshman of 2018-19, a godson of Steve Nash, was drafted third by the New York Knicks?

RJ Barrett's father Rowan played for Canada alongside Nash, who sometimes trained his godson as a boy. Barrett spent one season at Duke next to Zion Williamson.

Which architect designed both Cameron Indoor Stadium and most of Duke's Gothic West Campus?

Julian Abele's part in designing Duke was little known on campus until the mid-1980s, decades after his death in 1950. His portrait then went up in the main administration building, and in 2016 Duke named its main quad for him.

Which Duke star was 1994 ACC Player of the Year and entered the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2018?

Grant Hill was an NBA All-Star in five of his first six seasons before an ankle injury in 2000 wrecked most of the next four. He still played until he was 40.

Which team beat Bill Foster's Blue Devils in the 1978 NCAA championship game?

Kentucky won 94-88 behind 41 points from Jack Givens. Duke's run to the final was a shock in itself: a year earlier it had gone 2-10 in the ACC.

A 1961 brawl between Duke's Art Heyman and which North Carolina guard, later a Hall of Fame coach, inflamed the rivalry?

Larry Brown threw a punch after Heyman's hard foul, and both were suspended for the rest of the ACC season. Months later the two were teammates, winning gold at the Maccabiah Games.

Which school ended Duke's 19-year unbeaten non-conference run at Cameron in 2019?

Stephen F. Austin won 85-83 when Nathan Bain stole the ball and ran the length of the floor for a layup at the overtime buzzer, ending a run of 150 straight home wins over non-conference teams.

ESPN's 2015 documentary about a Duke star fans loved to hate is titled "I Hate" whom?

Christian Laettner had been voted the most hated college player ever in an ESPN poll. The film, narrated by Rob Lowe, gives five reasons: privilege, race, bullying, greatness and looks.

Whose running heave from near half-court forced double overtime against North Carolina in 1995, in a game Duke lost?

Jeff Capel tied it at the buzzer after North Carolina missed two free throws with three seconds left. Duke, without the ailing Krzyzewski, had trailed 26-9 early and still lost 102-100.

Which Duke assistant became interim coach when back trouble sidelined Coach K in 1995?

Pete Gaudet took over a team that had started 9-3 and finished 13-18. The record books credit his 4-15 run to him, not to Krzyzewski.