2006-07

Season Overview

The numbers were bleak. Only 39.0% of minutes played and a staggering 27.2% of scoring returned from the 2005-06 roster. Redick (2,769 career points), Shelden Williams (all-time rebounds and blocks leader), Sean Dockery, and Lee Melchionni were all gone. Duke fielded ten freshmen or sophomores out of twelve roster players — the youngest team in more than 60 years. There was not a single senior on the roster.

The only upperclassman was junior DeMarcus Nelson, who had been injury-plagued in his first two seasons and entered the year with just nine career starts. The most experienced players were sophomores Greg Paulus (33 career starts) and Josh McRoberts (31 starts). For the first time in the 102-year history of Duke men’s basketball, two sophomores — Paulus and McRoberts — were named team captains. The freshman class included Gerald Henderson, a 6-5 shooting guard from Philadelphia; Jon Scheyer, a cerebral combo guard from the Chicago suburbs; Lance Thomas, a versatile forward; and Brian Zoubek, a 7-1 center from New Jersey.

Then the preseason dealt another blow. Paulus, the team’s most experienced player and expected floor general, broke his foot in October and missed all of preseason practice. He returned in time for the opener but spent months trying to mesh with teammates he had barely practiced with. The team never fully gelled.

Nelson stepped up admirably, averaging a team-high 14.5 points and shooting over 50% from the field, but he couldn’t carry the offense alone. McRoberts showed flashes of the versatile, do-everything talent that would make him a first-round NBA pick, but at 6-10 he was the team’s only real interior presence — Zoubek was too raw as a freshman to carry significant minutes. The Blue Devils averaged just 68.9 points per game, their lowest offensive output in the K era, though the defense remained characteristically stingy at 53.4 points allowed early in the season.

Duke started 13-1 and looked like it might defy the youth narrative. But ACC play exposed the roster’s limitations. The Blue Devils went 8-8 in conference — their first .500 ACC record since the 1994-95 nightmare season when K had missed time with back surgery. They finished tied for fourth. The margin for error that Redick and Williams had provided for years was gone, and when opponents pressed Paulus or sagged into the paint against McRoberts, there was nobody else to turn to.

The ACC Tournament brought an immediate exit — a first-round loss that offered no salvation. Duke limped into the NCAA Tournament as a #6 seed, their lowest seeding since 1998.

The first-round opponent was 11th-seeded VCU, coached by Jeff Capel — a Duke alumnus, former player under K, and the man whose half-court shot had sent the 1995 Duke-UNC game into double overtime. Capel’s Rams were 27-6, running an aggressive, up-tempo style with a fearless point guard named Eric Maynor.

The game in Buffalo was a war. Three players left with blood — Henderson cut his hand, Scheyer was cut near his eye by Maynor’s elbow, and VCU’s Wil Fameni got a bloody nose from a teammate collision. Paulus played 38 minutes under relentless full-court pressure and scored a career-high 25 points. McRoberts recorded a double-double with 22 points and 12 rebounds, adding 5 blocks and 4 assists in 40 minutes. They became the first pair of Duke teammates to both score 20 points all season.

Duke led by 11 in the second half at 61-50 after holding VCU scoreless for five and a half minutes. Then the Rams erupted with an 18-6 run to take a 68-67 lead with five minutes remaining. The game was tied at 70, 72, 74, and 77 in the final minutes. VCU led by two with 16 seconds left when Nelson took a missed free throw the length of the court and scored to tie it at 77 with 12 seconds remaining.

VCU called timeout. Maynor took the inbound, dribbled to the right side of the lane, and hit a pull-up jumper with 1.8 seconds left. The ball went through clean. Paulus’ desperation 40-footer at the buzzer fell just left of the basket. VCU 79, Duke 77.

It was Duke’s first NCAA Tournament first-round loss since 1996. It broke a streak of nine consecutive Sweet Sixteen appearances — the longest active run in the NCAA by seven years and the second-longest in tournament history. The 22-11 record was Duke’s worst since K’s health-related absence in 1994-95.

McRoberts declared for the NBA Draft after the season, selected 37th overall by the Portland Trail Blazers. His departure removed the team’s most versatile player but opened the door for the freshmen who would form the nucleus of Duke’s next chapter: Henderson, Scheyer, Thomas, and eventually Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith in 2007-08.

The 2006-07 season was the price Duke paid for the Redick-Williams era’s brilliance. Two players had carried so much of the program’s identity that their departure left a vacuum no freshman class could immediately fill. It was also a reminder that even at Duke, under the greatest coach in the history of the sport, talent and experience matter. You can coach up potential, but you can’t manufacture it overnight.

K later used the 2006-07 season as a teaching tool. The VCU loss, he told future teams, was what happened when you didn’t have an identity, when you relied on individual performances instead of collective habits, when you were talented but not yet tough. The freshman core that survived that season — Henderson, Scheyer, Thomas, Zoubek — would internalize that lesson. Three years later, they would win a national championship.

The cruelest part of the 2006-07 season wasn’t the loss itself — it was how close Duke came to surviving it.

The Blue Devils, a #6 seed, faced 11th-seeded VCU in Buffalo in a first-round game that had all the makings of an upset. The Rams were 27-6, coached by Jeff Capel — a Duke alumnus who had played under K and whose half-court buzzer-beater had sent the 1995 Duke-UNC game into double overtime. Capel knew Duke’s strengths and weaknesses as intimately as anyone in the country. His team ran an aggressive, pressing style with a fearless sophomore point guard named Eric Maynor.

The game was physical from the opening tip. Three players left the court bleeding at various points — Henderson’s hand, Scheyer’s eye (from Maynor’s elbow), and VCU’s Fameni’s nose. Paulus and Maynor got tangled multiple times in a running battle that lasted 40 minutes. “It was a physical game throughout,” Paulus said. “They’re a physical team and we’re not going to back down to anybody.”

Paulus scored a career-high 25. McRoberts had 22 points, 12 rebounds, 5 blocks, and 4 assists in 40 minutes. It was the finest game of his Duke career — and no other Blue Devil reached double figures. The Big Two did everything they could. It wasn’t enough.

Duke built an 11-point lead at 61-50 in the second half after holding VCU scoreless for five and a half minutes. The game felt won. Then VCU unleashed an 18-6 run. Maynor found seams. Shooters hit open threes. The press that had bothered Duke all game turned turnovers into fast-break points. With five minutes remaining, VCU led 68-67. The lead changed hands six more times.

With 16 seconds left, VCU led 79-75 after two free throws. DeMarcus Nelson grabbed the miss on a VCU free throw, raced the length of the court, and scored to make it 79-77 with 12 seconds remaining. VCU called timeout.

The inbound went to Maynor. He dribbled right, sized up the defense, and pulled up from just inside the free throw line. The jumper was clean. It fell through with 1.8 seconds left. VCU 79, Duke 77.

Duke called timeout. Paulus caught the inbound and heaved a 40-footer that fell just left of the basket at the buzzer.

The streak was over. Nine consecutive Sweet Sixteen appearances — the longest in the NCAA by seven years, the second-longest in tournament history — broken by an 11th seed in the first round. It was Duke’s first opening-round loss since 1996, the last time the program had been this young and this thin.

McRoberts left for the NBA Draft. But the freshmen who survived this game — Gerald Henderson, Jon Scheyer, Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek — carried the scar of Buffalo with them. Three years later, in 2010, those four players would be seniors on a Duke team that won the national championship. K made sure they never forgot what the VCU loss felt like. He used it as a teaching tool for years: what happens when you have talent but no identity, when you’re young and physical but not yet tough, when you lead by 11 and think the game is over.

The 2006-07 season was the bottom. Everything that came after — the reload, the recruiting, the 2010 championship — was built on its ashes.