Record: 32-5, 13-3 (2nd place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Sweet 16
Final AP Ranking: 3
All-ACC Players: Nolan Smith (ACC POY), Kyle Singler (1st)
All-Americans: Nolan Smith (1st)
The Kyrie Irving year. Duke was coming off a national championship, and going into 2011, there were two holes to plug. The first was replacing Jon Scheyer, and there the Blue Devils had several options, all of them good. Kyrie Irving was the consensus #2 recruit in the country behind UNC’s Harrison Barnes. Seth Curry was an impact transfer who had averaged 20 points per game as a freshman at Liberty. And sophomore Andre Dawkins had played well in limited minutes in 2010.
The second hole was on the interior. Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek had graduated. Neither got a lot of ink, but they played vital roles on the championship team, anchoring the interior of one of the best defenses in the country and grabbing a ton of offensive rebounds. There, the plan was replacement by committee with Ryan Kelly and the Plumlee brothers getting more playing time.
So it was yet another Duke team stacked with blue chippers. Despite losing Irving to a toe injury in the eighth game, the Blue Devils went undefeated at home on their way to a 27-4 regular season record. Still without Irving, they had one of the most dominant ACC Tournaments ever, winning every game by at least 14 points. At 30-4, Duke traveled to the West region as the top seed.
Perhaps their second round game against eighth-seeded Michigan should have been a warning. The Blue Devils led all the way, but Michigan cut the lead to one inside two minutes, and it was all Duke could do to hang on for the two-point win. The Wolverines shot 51% for the game.
Next up was Arizona, a tough draw for a game in Anaheim. The Blue Devils started well, but their defense in the second half completely fell apart. The final margin was 16. It was a disappointing ending for a team that had a tremendous year.
This was a really good team, but compared to the championship team from the year before, the biggest difference was that interior toughness and rebounding. The 2010 team with Thomas and Zoubek was one of the best rebounding teams in the country; the 2011 team took a step back in that regard on both ends of the court. The 2011 team was actually a better shooting team, but their offensive efficiency went down because there weren’t nearly as good on the offensive glass.
The other interesting storyline was Irving – his game, his injury, his absence, his return, and how all that affected the team. Coach K knew what he had; Irving was a Day 1 starter and showed immediately that he was ready. In his seventh college game, he scored 31 to lead the Blue Devils to a big win over Michigan State. But in the very next game, Irving sustained the toe injury that would keep him out for the rest of the season until the NCAA Tournament.
This meant more playing time for Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins and more scoring responsibility for Nolan Smith. That Duke went on to have such a great year says volumes about how they stepped up, but you have to wonder how the team would have developed differently with a healthy Irving all year. Based on his first eight games, he was playing at a first team All-ACC level. He would have been one of the all-time great freshmen in the ACC, possibly the country.
Irving’s return for the NCAA Tournament must have been challenging for the coaching staff. Duke had played 26 games without him. It’s certainly a good problem to have, adding such an incredible talent to a team that was already one of the best in the country. And there was really no decision about whether to play him; he’s too good. You can’t not play him. On the other hand, how do you integrate him into the team without disrupting everything? K chose to bring him off the bench. Seth Curry lost minutes to Irving and was ultimately a non-factor in the games against Michigan and Arizona. And you know Duke’s team defense must have been affected by trying to reincorporate Irving.
But I’m dwelling too much on what this team didn’t accomplish rather than what they did. With or without Irving, they went 32-5, were ranked #1 most of the year, and dominated the ACC Tournament. They earned their spot in the Top 50.
“[Kyrie Irving will] be like, ‘Get out of the way, I’ve got it,'” [Nolan] Smith said. “You don’t really hear that too often, when a freshman will tell two seniors on the wings to get out of the way. We have no problem letting him do it.” – from the AP write-up of Duke’s win over Michigan State, December 2, 2010