2003 Top 50 List: Yes
Dan Collins List: Yes
Tim Duncan is probably the greatest defensive player in ACC history. Him or Ralph Sampson, I guess. Duncan, Sampson, Tree Rollins, and Shelden Williams, in that order, rank 1-2-3-5 in career blocks and 2-3-4-5 in career rebounds.
We associate Duncan with Randolph Childress, but they overlapped for only two seasons in 1994 and 1995. 1995 was the year for them to do something special if they were going to, and with their ACC Tournament performance, I suppose you could say they did. I remember their loss to Oklahoma State in the Sweet 16 and how surprised I was. But looking back, I shouldn’t have been that surprised. Wake had Childress and Duncan, which is a lot, but not much else. Tony Rutland, Ricky Peral, Jerry Braswell, Rusty LaRue, and Scooter Banks. Rutland and Banks were okay I guess, but that’s not a lot of talent. And they got a bit unlucky in their tournament draw; Oklahoma State was an underseeded #4. According to the Simple Rating System on sports-reference.com, the Cowboys were the seventh-best team in the country. I think I was just disappointed when Wake lost because I really enjoyed watching that team play.
What strikes me about Duncan’s record is how good the Deacs were in 1996 and 1997 considering the weak talent surrounding him. Wake went 11-5 and 12-4 in the ACC and finished 9th in the AP poll both years. Without Duncan, that’s a lower division ACC team. I’m trying to think of another instance where one player elevated a team that much. Len Bias, as great as he was, wasn’t able to lift his teams to the Top 10. In 1998, without Duncan, the Deacs dropped from 24-7/11-5 to 16-14/7-9. I think that’s about right; Duncan was worth 8 extra wins by himself. Duncan was first team All-America and ACC Player of the Year both years, and was consensus National Player of the Year as a senior.
Duncan’s 1997 rebounds per game average of 14.74 had not been equaled since in NCAA Division I – until Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe pulled down 15.2 in 2022.
In the past 35 years, roughly corresponding to the Mike Krzyzewski era at Duke but leaving out his first few years when they weren’t very good, here are the best records I could find against Coach K’s Duke teams:
- Tim Duncan, 8-1 against Duke in his career (1994-1997)
- Randoph Childress, 7-2 against Duke in his career (1991, 1993-1995)
- Jeff McInnis, 6-0 against Duke in his career (1994-1996)
- Tyler Hansbrough/Danny Green, 6-2 against Duke in their career (2006-2009)
- Honorable mention, Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace, 4-0 against Duke in their career (1994-1995)
Duncan, Hansbrough/Green, and McInnis never lost at Cameron. So far as I can tell, they are the only players of significance in this era who can say that (not counting Stackhouse and Wallace who played only two games). Notice that most of these good records happened during the mid-1990s lean years, the forgettable era between the Laettner/Hurley/Grant Hill teams and the Battier/Brand teams. These were the Blue Devils of Chris Collins, Jeff Capel, Greg Newton, Ricky Price, Steve Wojciechowski, and, of course, Pete Gaudet.