Record: 32-4, 14-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Sweet 16
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: JJ Redick (ACC POY), Shelden Williams (1st)
All-Americans: JJ Redick (National POY), Shelden Williams (1st)
This is a really interesting team. JJ Redick and Shelden Williams were obviously the cornerstones, but on paper, they had a strong and deep supporting cast. DeMarcus Nelson returned for his sophomore season after making the ACC All-Freshman team the year before. Seniors Sean Dockery and Lee Melchionni provided depth and experience. And the recruiting class was second to none, with five Top 60 recruits, including four McDonald’s All-Americans. This team was loaded.
And they played like it, starting 17-0 and blowing out several ranked teams, including #2 Texas. After a slip-up against Georgetown, they won ten more to run their record to 27-1. But the Blue Devils dropped their last two regular season games against Florida State and North Carolina. In the game against the Tar Heels, Redick had an uncharacteristically poor shooting performance, going 5-21 from the field, and maybe that was a hint to the rest of the country on how Duke could be beaten. Just stop JJ Redick, easy right?
The ACC Tournament consisted of three tight games against Miami, Wake Forest, and an outstanding Boston College team. The Blue Devils survived all three to win their seventh ACC championship in eight years. Redick was named the Everett Case Award winner and the ACC Player of the Year for the second time.
Duke went into the NCAA Tournament hoping to erase the memory of the previous season when the top-seeded Blue Devils were upset by Michigan State in the Sweet 16. But this year’s Sweet 16 was deja vu all over again, only this time it was LSU and Glen “Big Baby” Davis who played spoiler. Tiger defensive specialist Garrett Temple (who, at the time of this writing, is the 6th-oldest active player in the NBA) frustrated Redick all night. The Blue Devils shot 28% on the way to their lowest point total of the year, and their season, and Redick’s career, ended in disappointment.
What went wrong, in retrospect? Why did a team with two first team All-Americans fail to get out of the Sweet 16 for the second year in a row? Well, when you look at it honestly, this team had some weaknesses. It’s a testament to how exceptional Redick and Williams were that they had such an incredible year. Here are the challenges they had:
- The supporting cast underperformed. Nelson was hobbled by an ankle injury all year and was a non-factor in the NCAA Tournament. The five freshmen collectively were underwhelming. Josh McRoberts was a good player, but not as good as many fans expected from the top high school recruit in the country. He turned pro after two years without really leaving a mark on the program. Greg Paulus had some good moments in his career, but his playing time went down every year and he is best remembered for getting dunked on by Danny Green. Martynas Pocius, Eric Boateng, and Jamal Boykin never became contributors at Duke.
- They were thin on the interior. This was one of the worst rebounding teams in the country. According to kenpom, they ranked 283rd in offensive rebounding percentage and 311th in defensive rebounding percentage among Division I teams. Which is ironic considering Shelden Williams is seventh in career rebounds in ACC history. But the only size they had besides Shelden was McRoberts, and he wasn’t a banger. If Shelden didn’t get it, nobody got it.
- They were highly dependent on JJ Redick. When he was in the game, Redick took 35% of the Blue Devils’ shots, a huge percentage. And most of the time, that wasn’t a bug, it was a feature. When the guy who takes 35% of your shots has a True Shooting Percentage of 63%, like Redick did for the season, you’re going to have a great offense. On the other hand, when the guy who takes 35% of your shots goes 3-for-18, like Redick did against LSU, you’re in trouble. Of course, it worked for them all year, and it could have worked in the tourney as well. Which brings us to #4…
- They picked a bad day to have a bad day against LSU. Redick showed he was human. LSU defended him really well. It happens.
But enough about their flaws. They went 32-4, they were ranked #1 for most of the year, and they won the ACC Championship. This was a great team, a Top 50 team.
This 2006 season marks a logical bookend to the most impressive 10-ish year run in the history of college basketball since Wooden-era UCLA. That would be the Duke teams of 1998-2006. It’s not like Duke fell off a cliff after 2006, but the level dipped just a bit. How could it not? During the nine-year stretch from 1998-2006, here’s what they did:
- 280-42 overall record, .869 winning percentage, average record 31-5
- 121-23 ACC record, .840 winning percentage, average record 13.4-2.6
- Eight of nine teams ranked #1 at some point during the season, the other ranked #2
- Eight #1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, the other was a #3
- Six ACC regular season titles
- Seven ACC Tournament titles
- Five teams finished ranked #1 in the AP poll; no team finished ranked lower than #7
- 65-25 record against ranked teams
The only thing that comes close is UNC 1981-1988. But Duke’s is better.