Ten years ago, Duke men’s basketball opened its season by pummeling Presbyterian. Two rookies named Jahlil Okafor and Grayson Allen led the team in scoring. Six Blue Devils put up double-digit points. The bewildered visitors never stood a chance.
When the chaos of the 113-44 romp finally settled, it only took visiting coach Gregg Nibert a few words to sum up his thoughts on the team:
“They’ll be scary,” he said. “They’ll be scary in March.”
Nibert was right. The 2015 Blue Devils eventually waltzed through the NCAA Tournament, winning the program’s fifth national title by a combined margin of 93 points. Hanging a banner in Cameron Indoor Stadium cemented their place among the best in program history — a feat no Duke squad has matched for a decade.
Even this year’s Blue Devils, who spent the season shattering records and bucking statistical norms, played beneath the shadow of Duke’s five championship titles. How do they stack up against the program’s best in their search for a sixth crown?
Shooting star(s)
It’s no secret that big names bring home banners. Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill headlined Duke’s first two title squads. Shane Battier led the charge in 2001. Jon Scheyer delivered in 2010, while the 2015 team boasted Okafor and Allen.
At first glance, having Cooper Flagg at the helm in 2025 fits the superstar requirement. The freshman swept the ACC Rookie of the Week awards a record 12 times this season, and he boasts the fourth-highest KenPom Player of the Year rating in the entire 14-year history of the site’s analytics. The projected No. 1 NBA draft pick is now one of four freshmen — all Blue Devils — to ever take the ACC Player of the Year title. He also leads his team in every statistical category, the first rookie in Division I history to do so heading into the tournament.
But accolades alone don’t win championships. Just look at Duke’s 2019 squad, which fizzled out in the Elite Eight even with freshman phenom duo Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett averaging a combined 45.2 points per game. That season, the two consensus All-Americans had star power to spare. It was fickle bench support that doomed them when tournament pressure began drying up shots.
Luckily, the 2025 Blue Devils have more depth than a diving well. Every starter has earned an All-ACC team selection, and the rest of the roster has proven it can step up in critical moments.
Isaiah Evans solves shooting woes behind the arc — in his six best games this season, the freshman scored at least 16 points with an average of just 21.2 minutes on the floor. His classmate Patrick Ngongba II developed into an important rotational weapon after recovering from a preseason foot injury. Maliq Brown, Tyrese Proctor and Flagg’s absences at varying points this season allowed the Blue Devils to perfect the art of trading offensive production and spreading defensive responsibility across the floor.
That ability to adapt shone when both Brown and Flagg hobbled off the floor of the ACC Tournament mere minutes apart. Kon Knueppel, Khaman Maluach and Evans filled the holes, combining for 56 points, 16 rebounds and eight assists to secure a quarterfinal victory against Georgia Tech.
When things got tight against archrival North Carolina in the semifinals, Sion James and Ngongba both stepped up. The freshman did so for a career-high 12 points, going 6-for-6 on field goals in his most important 17 minutes off the bench all season. Even Caleb Foster, who has struggled to put up consistent performances as a sophomore, notched two steals, six points and an assist to help Duke pull away from the Tar Heels early on.
“I think it just shows that we're a real team. It's not really about one person or two people. It's about Duke,” Evans said. “Duke is going to handle business all the time. That's what we came here to do.”
The Blue Devils’ former championship teams shared a similar attitude — and depth distribution. The 1991, 1992 and 2001 teams each had five players averaging double-digit points per game, while the 2015 team had four. Like the 2010 champions, the 2025 Blue Devils currently have three players averaging double figures.
A comparison of scoring from the top eight players demonstrates that this year’s squad has similar depth to previous title winners. It still doesn’t fully account for the timely nature of these contributions, and it leaves out Ngongba despite his pivotal minutes. With recent contributions to the team coming from all angles, every Blue Devil in the loaded lineup looks ready to dance like never before.
Baby Blue Devils
If talent goes a long way in March, experience goes even further. Statistics show that teams with returning players tend to find an edge on the final dance floor.
From 1990 to 2024, the champion of the NCAA Tournament averaged 66.11% of its scoring off players returning from the previous year’s roster. Those numbers were roughly five percent higher before the implementation of the one-and-done rule in 2006, but have settled only five percent lower over the past 19 years.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.
Duke has averaged 52.9% of scoring from returning players over the same time period, but its championship teams regress closer to the national figure at 62.4%. This year, the Blue Devils’ returning production sits at just 19.4%.
No team has ever won the tournament with a number lower than 34.0%.
Considering how much success Duke has found this season, that discrepancy shouldn’t ring too many alarm bells. Having freshmen and transfers on the team does not foreshadow failure — the 2015 squad went all the way with three rookie starters, and the 2025 group is poised to make a deep run with the same.
The transfer portal has also changed how coaches approach roster construction, which reflects in lower rates of returning production.
“I think context is an important thing,” Scheyer said in an early March press availability. “Not all freshmen are the same, and certain freshman classes may need more time … I felt this freshman class would be ready to go right away. And then same thing with experienced players. Not all experienced players are necessarily the right fit for Duke or the right fit in college basketball. I think finding guys who are secure in who they are as people and players is key for us.”
The 19.4% figure still highlights Duke’s biggest liability: placing a crunch-time ball in the hands of freshmen. Many of the Blue Devils’ championship teams found defining moments in tight scenarios. Laettner’s shot against Kentucky in 1992 fell through with equal parts luck and experience. Brian Zoubek sealed the victory over Butler in 2010 with his one directed free throw and two clutch rebounds.
By contrast, this season’s young stars failed to capitalize on buzzer-beater efforts in their three losses. Kansas, Kentucky and Clemson all walked away with victories after slips on the floor or usually-reliable shots that bounced off the rim right when they mattered most.
“We've talked the whole year about inflection points in the game,” Scheyer said. “There's always moments that can make or break you.”
The Blue Devils toyed with those moments against North Carolina in the ACC Tournament. Proctor missed some important free throws. Knueppel made some others. A lucky lane violation from the Tar Heels let Duke scoot out with the victory.
Winning by 30-point margins in nearly every other contest hasn’t offered the newest Blue Devils much additional practice under stress. A lack of experience in tight, high-stakes games could still leave the team unprotected in a tournament heartbreaker situation.
Leading the dance
Still, Duke does have experience in other corners of the floor. Proctor, a junior, has served as a reliable fixture on the court this season, backing up freshmen starters with solid shooting and calm presence. The squad also has experience in graduate transfers James and Mason Gillis, the latter of whom played in the national final just last season for Purdue. That’s not to mention the perspective Scheyer offers as a coach, having played his own way to the title 15 years ago.
The experience bolstering the 2025 squad has come from so many different angles that the team has no official captain, unlike previous title-winning groups.
“The leadership's been as strong as any team I've been a part of,” Scheyer said. “I was a former captain, and in this day and age where you have less continuity and more turnover, you want that to mean something … Tyrese’s experience jumped off the page. If you saw us every day in practice, Sion and Mason, with their experience from different perspectives, jumped off the page. Khaman and Cooper, man, the way that they talk. So it's been a collective effort … I didn't want to just put a captain and limit what other guys could do.”
The era of the transfer portal and NIL deals has made it harder to foster that kind of collaborative basketball environment, especially on teams headlined by young players. The court chemistry that blossomed between Laettner, Hurley and Hill in the 1990s — or even Scheyer and his teammates in the late 2000s — has found itself squished into a breakneck rinse-and-repeat cycle.
“When we won in 2010, the starting five played in 100 games together, right? You're not going to have that now no matter what,” Scheyer said. “And so for us, [we need] the right complementary players with skill sets that balance each other out, but I think more importantly, their motivation and who they are as people.”
The 2025 Blue Devils check all those boxes, and they have developed deep connections despite starting the season almost completely as strangers. It shines through on the court. Duke ranks 23rd in the country with 16.8 assists per game, and the team’s ability to share the ball and run the right play mirrors that of championship teams from before the explosion of roster turnover.
“They've earned my trust, but we built it together,” Scheyer said. “I think it's gone both ways, and it's led to some of the most beautiful basketball I think we've had and that I've coached.”
Here comes Duke
Almost exactly a decade after beating Presbyterian, Duke men’s basketball throttled Arizona State in an exhibition game. A rookie named Knueppel led the scoring. Six Blue Devils put up double-digit points. The visitors had Hurley, a former Duke national champion, as their coach, and they still never stood a chance.
Like Nibert before him, Hurley had some thoughts on the Blue Devils and their 103-47 victory.
“I’ve seen a lot of good teams over the years,” Hurley said. “They've got a chance to be really good.”
Abby DiSalvo is a Trinity sophomore and assistant Blue Zone editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.