2007-08

Season Overview

The VCU loss had left a scar, but the 2007-08 roster had the ingredients for a genuine bounce-back. With 82.0% of minutes and 81.3% of scoring returning, plus a highly-rated freshman class headlined by Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith, Duke had both experience and new talent for the first time since the Redick-Williams era.

Senior DeMarcus Nelson was the sole captain and the team’s emotional leader. He had waited three years behind Redick and Williams and endured injury-plagued early seasons to finally command the stage. Junior Greg Paulus ran the point. Sophomore Gerald Henderson, the player whose elbow had broken Tyler Hansbrough’s nose eight months earlier, was emerging as Duke’s most dynamic athlete — a 6-5 wing with NBA-caliber explosiveness who averaged 12.7 points and 1.1 blocks per game. Sophomore Jon Scheyer operated as the sixth man, providing shooting and basketball IQ off the bench. Sophomore Lance Thomas brought toughness and defensive versatility.

The crown jewel of the freshmen was Singler, a 6-8 forward from Medford, Oregon, who had led South Medford High School to its first state championship by beating Kevin Love’s Lake Oswego team. He was the #4 recruit nationally and started at power forward from day one. Singler averaged 13.3 points and 5.9 rebounds and won ACC Rookie of the Year honors. He played with a quiet ferocity that didn’t announce itself with dunks or celebrations but showed up in every hustle play, every offensive rebound, and every willingness to guard bigger players. Nolan Smith, a freshman guard from Syracuse whose father Derek Smith had died of a heart attack on a cruise ship when Nolan was a child, provided depth in the backcourt and showed flashes of the dynamic scorer he would become.

The season started magnificently. Duke won the NIT Season Tip-Off in November, beating Princeton, Illinois, and Marquette in consecutive games. The Blue Devils rolled to a 21-1 start and climbed to #2 in the AP poll. For a stretch in January and February, this looked like the team that would bring Duke back to the Final Four. The defense was elite. The scoring was balanced across four double-figure contributors. Cameron Indoor was rocking again.

Then the floor shifted. Duke lost to UNC at Cameron Indoor Stadium as Hansbrough continued his undefeated reign in Durham. The Blue Devils went 7-5 over their final 12 regular-season and ACC Tournament games. The interior weakness that had plagued the program since Shelden Williams’ departure was exposed again and again — Duke had no answer for physical post play. The team could shoot, defend the perimeter, and compete in most games, but when opponents punished them inside, there was no counter.

Duke won its first game at UNC’s Dean Smith Center, beating the Tar Heels in a game where UNC was missing injured point guard Ty Lawson. It was Henderson’s lone win over Hansbrough in four career matchups. But UNC won the return game at Cameron, as Hansbrough and the Tar Heels continued their dominance in Durham.

In the ACC Tournament, Duke’s run ended in the semifinals, denying the team any momentum heading into March. The Blue Devils entered the NCAA Tournament as a #2 seed in the West Region — a strong seeding that reflected the 21-1 start more than the 7-5 finish.

The first-round game against 15th-seeded Belmont in Washington, D.C., nearly became one of the great upsets in tournament history. Duke survived 71-70 in a game that required every ounce of the team’s composure. It was the kind of game that championship-caliber teams win by 15 and rebuilding teams win by 1. Duke was clearly the latter.

The second round brought seventh-seeded West Virginia, and the physical mismatch was immediately apparent. The Mountaineers, led by Joe Alexander and Joe Mazzulla, pushed Duke around on both ends of the floor. They outrebounded the Blue Devils, controlled the paint, and played with a swaggering physicality that Duke couldn’t match. Alexander and Mazzulla seemed to enjoy the pushing and shoving, and Duke had no interior presence to push back. West Virginia won 73-67 in a game that wasn’t as close as the score suggested.

One Duke Basketball Report writer captured the sting perfectly: “It wasn’t losing as much as how Duke lost. Guys like Joe Alexander and Joe Mazzulla basically mocked the Blue Devils and pushed them around.”

The season ended at 28-6 — a significant improvement over the 22-11 nightmare of 2006-07, but still two consecutive years without a Sweet Sixteen appearance for the first time since the early 1990s. The post-Redick, post-Williams rebuilding project was taking longer than anyone had anticipated.

Nelson graduated and went undrafted but played professionally overseas. The core that would define Duke’s next chapter was now in place: Henderson (entering his junior year), Singler and Scheyer (sophomores), Thomas and Zoubek (juniors), and Smith (sophomore). They were still a year away from adding the final piece — but the identity was forming.

Meanwhile, K had taken on a second job. He had been named head coach of the United States men’s Olympic basketball team and would spend the summer of 2008 coaching LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Dwyane Wade to a gold medal in Beijing. The dual role was unprecedented for a college coach, and some critics wondered whether Team USA’s demands were splitting K’s focus. But the Olympic experience would reshape how K recruited, coached, and related to the next generation of NBA-bound talent. It was a bridge between the old Duke — built on four-year players and developmental arcs — and the new Duke that would eventually embrace one-and-done culture.

After barely surviving Belmont 71-70 in the first round — a game that required every ounce of a veteran team’s composure against a 15-seed — Duke drew seventh-seeded West Virginia in the second round. The Mountaineers were exactly the kind of team Duke couldn’t handle: big, physical, aggressive in the post, and utterly unafraid of the Duke name.

Joe Alexander, a 6-8 forward, and Joe Mazzulla, a scrappy guard who would later become an NBA head coach with the Boston Celtics, set the tone from the opening minutes. They punished Duke inside, outrebounded the Blue Devils, and played with a physical swagger that bordered on mockery. Alexander attacked the rim with impunity. Mazzulla competed with a snarling intensity that made every loose ball feel personal.

Duke had no answer. The interior weakness that had haunted the program since Shelden Williams’ graduation two years earlier was on full display. Singler, for all his skill, was giving away inches and pounds to West Virginia’s frontline. Zoubek was too foul-prone to stay on the floor. Henderson and Scheyer competed, but the game was being decided in the paint, not on the perimeter.

West Virginia won 73-67. The margin was six, but the game felt more lopsided than that. Duke had been physically overwhelmed for forty minutes.

It was the second consecutive year without a Sweet Sixteen appearance — the first time that had happened since 1995 and 1996, the years surrounding K’s back surgery and the 13-18 Pete Gaudet interim disaster. The 28-6 record and #2 seed had masked the reality: this team, for all its improvement over the VCU debacle, still lacked the toughness and interior presence to survive March against teams that could impose their will physically.

But the seeds were planted. Singler and Smith would return as sophomores. Henderson and Scheyer would enter their junior years. Thomas and Zoubek would be seniors in two years. The nucleus of the 2010 national championship team was assembling, even if nobody could see it yet through the frustration of another early exit.

K took the lesson to Beijing, where he spent the summer coaching NBA All-Stars. The experience would reshape his recruiting philosophy and his willingness to embrace elite one-and-done talent. The old Duke model — four-year players who grew into champions — was about to merge with a new reality. But first, there was one more year of growth to endure.