This is it. No matter what happens for the rest of this year's NCAA Tournament, one team will cut down the nets as National Champion, One Shining Moment will play, and... the evil empire will be never be the same again. Duke Basketball will not be disappearing, but when the curtain closes on the 2021-22 Duke hoops season, the program will never be the same again.
I had no plans of writing anything about Coach K retiring and his final run at a National Championship until Sunday's game against Michigan State went final. For the last nine years, I haven't cared too much about Duke Basketball. Nine years ago was when I went off to college at Ball State University. I was not attending Duke University, so in my mind it was not right to be a fan anymore of a school that I did not attend. I find it very strange to support an academic institution that you did not attend or graduate from. My apologies to anyone that may be offended by that, just my personal belief. However, for the first nineteen years of my life, I was the biggest Duke basketball fan anyone could possibly imagine.
I was born on April 1st, 1994. The 1994 NCAA Men's Final Four was played on April 2nd, with the National Championship game played on April 4th. From as far back as I can remember, I've been told that my Dad brought me home from the hospital a day early to watch Duke in the Final Four. Whether that is true or not doesn't really matter. We all like to think the day we were born was special somehow, so this is my thing, and I'm sticking with it. Duke beat Florida in the National Semifinal and ended up facing Arkansas on April 4th for the National Championship. Arkansas went on to win the National Title, but that didn't matter. I was three days old and I was a Duke fan, whether I knew it or not. When I was two, my Dad would ask me what college I was going to go to, and I would say Duke. On April 2nd, 2001, one day after my seventh birthday, Duke beat Arizona for the National Championship. I am lucky to have a vague memory of this because this was during a big time in my life. My family moved from Columbus, Indiana to Brownsburg, Indiana on March 23rd, 2001. So I remember watching Duke play at our house in Columbus, moving to Brownsburg, and watching the rest of the tournament at our new house. For whatever reason, I also will never forget having bittersweet feelings about that game knowing it was my last time getting to see Shane Battier play in a Duke Uniform. I was hooked.
Now it's 2006, I'm in fifth grade, and I am absolutely obsessed with Duke Basketball. For the previous couple seasons my fandom had ramped up, and 2006 was the apex. 2001 was awesome, but I was barely seven. This was the season that I was really going to get to enjoy seeing my team win a National Title. Duke was the number one team in the country the whole season and the number one overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. This was JJ Redick's Senior year. This was Sheldon Williams Senior year. The Sports Illustrated College Basketball Season Preview Issue going into the season looked like this for crying out loud...
No one was beating this team. Oh, and the Final Four happened to be in my hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana. This was going to be the coolest moment of my young life, seeing my favorite of my favorite teams win a Championship no more than 25 miles from my house. Turns out it wasn't meant to be. My life came to a screeching halt on March 23rd, 2006. They lost in the Sweet 16 to LSU. There would be no Final Four in Indy, nor a National Championship victory. Nothing. Except tears. A lot of tears. I don't think I've ever cried more in my life than I did that night. I swear it was two straight hours in my basement just bawling my eyes out in disbelief. I still think it should be considered a miracle I made it to school the next day.
A week later the Final Four was in Indianapolis, and although I was still bummed, I enjoyed the hell out of myself during the weekend festivities. Besides for LSU being there, I could not have had a much better time going to "Bracket Town" and doing other fun things downtown. I was also lucky enough to attend a college basketball All Star game and the NCAA 3 point and Dunk Contest over Final Four weekend. The only thing missing was going to the actual Final Four. I was in fifth grade, I didn't have any money, but I really wanted to go. Even without Duke, I was extremely excited for the Final Four. I told myself over that weekend that the next time the Final Four was in Indianapolis, I would be in attendance. From that point on, every dollar that I received from allowance and holidays would go towards purchasing a ticket for the 2010 Final Four. For the next four years I did just that, and by the time 2010 rolled around I had more than enough money to buy a ticket to the Final Four, as well as the National Championship game. At this time in my life, the money I had saved was more than I had ever had before by a long shot, making it feel a little foolish to spend it all on a couple nights of basketball. This realization made me reconsider what to do with the money. I decided to spend a good portion of it on things I really wanted (most notably I remember buying a Jay Bruce player t shirt and a Joey Votto player t shirt. Sell the Team Bob!) Shortly after, the Indianapolis Colts made the AFC Championship game, so I ended up using some of the money to buy a ticket to the game. Which turned out to be a great decision as I got to see my favorite football team advance to the Super Bowl. The subsequent Super Bowl wasn't as jubilant unfortunately. The final decision I made was to use the remaining money on Final Four tickets only if Duke made it. I still really wanted to go no matter what but I was content on missing out to keep the cash that I had saved up.
The 2009-10 Duke basketball season was an awesome one. They were great all year, went 17-0 at home, won the ACC Tournament, and received the 3rd one seed in the NCAA Tournament. Their road to the Final Four was not a difficult one either. Despite all of this, I had been hurt year after year and was not going to get my hopes up like I had in 2006. This time was different though, they beat Baylor in the Elite 8, and I was officially going to see the team that I had loved more than any other from the time I was born play in the Final Four. As a freshman in high school, I spent $650 + on a two night pass to sit in the nose bleed seats of Lucas Oil Stadium by myself. I didn't care. At the time, this was the moment I could have only ever dreamed of experiencing. The Final Four was as cool as I had imagined, it doesn't get much better for a sports fan than being in an environment of 70,000 people at a football stadium for college basketball's National Championship. The first night Butler beat Michigan State and Duke rolled West Virginia to set up what would become a legendary showdown for the National Title.
Butler. Are you freaking kidding me? For the past nine years, I had waited to see Duke win another National Championship, and they were playing Butler? The school whose games I had been going to since I had moved to Indianapolis in 2001. Those games that my Grandpa and Dad would take me to at Hinkle Fieldhouse where you could buy $8 tickets and sit anywhere in the upper bowl that you wanted. A team from the Horizion League. One of the only Duke games I didn't get to watch during that season was their Senior Night game vs North Carolina. Duke won 82-50, but I didn't get to see a second of that sweet sweet North Carolina beat down. The only reason I missed that game is because I was at Butler's Conference Tournament Semifinal game against Milwaukee on the same night. There's no way this was happening. All I could think going into that game was that Butler was somehow going to steal Duke's National Championship. It was the ultimate Cinderella story and seemed so meant to be. Butler's campus is about five miles from Lucas Oil Stadium and that place was going to be 75% Butler fans cheering them on in their hometown. This was their moment. Not Dukes. Yet at the same time, I couldn't help but feeling like somehow, someway my Blue Devils would pull it out in the end.
The game was incredible. The atmosphere delivered with the Butler fans packing the stadium, and the game was competitive throughout. Duke controlled the game from the start, and while it was close, never really felt like they were in much danger of losing. This was such an awesome game to be at, I was nervous and happy throughout the whole experience like I never had been before. Coming down the stretch, something changed. My memory may be wrong here, but I believe it was at the under 4 minute media timeout where all of Lucas Oil Stadium began chanting "Let's Go Butler!" It was almost like the building was shaking, with a tidal wave of emotion and momentum crushing down on me, the rest of the Duke fans, and most importantly the team. For the first time in the game, I felt like there was a very real chance that Duke was not going to be cutting down the nets.
"At mid-court, launches the shot, ooooohh..." it went in. It went in!!! Gordon Hayward did it. He had hit a miracle shot to win a Championship. At least that is what had happened two years earlier. On March 22nd, 2008, Gordon Hayward hit a floater as time expired in the IHSAA 4A State Championship game to give Brownsburg its first State Title in basketball. As a 7th grader playing basketball in same school district, this was an incredibly cool moment. I was at every Brownsburg postseason game that year, and the run to state was so much fun to witness. The conclusion was one of the best moment's in Indiana High School basketball history, and it happened for my hometown. This was the highest of highs. Earlier that same day, things were not so bright for 7th grade me. Only about five hours earlier, I had experienced the lowest of lows for me at the time. Duke had lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament as a 2 seed to Joe Alexander and the 7th seeded West Virginia Mountaineers. On the way to the State Championship game that night, I had tears in my eyes. I was going to have to wait at least another year to see Duke get another shot at a National Title.
Now two years later, Gordon Hayward had the ball in his hands again as the clock wound down to zero in a Championship game. The same guy who had delivered me and the rest of Brownsburg one of the coolest sports moments ever, was now in the position to hand Duke basketball its most heartbreaking loss ever. With Duke leading 61-59 and with 3.6 seconds left on the clock in the National Championship game, Butler's Hayward got the rebound off a missed Duke free throw, dribbled up the sideline, got to half court and launched. "At mid-court, launches the shot, oooooohh, it ALMOST went in!" Jim Nantz delivered one of the most iconic calls in sports broadcast history, and Duke was the King of the Dance. Hayward missed. I went absolutely bananas. Duke won the National Championship and I was there to see it. This was unreal. I had to be dreaming. I saved up my money for four years to go to this event, and in the end got to see my team win it all. Twelve years later, and it still doesn't feel real that it actually worked out so perfectly for me. As a sports fan, I don't know if anything will ever top this moment for me. I hope everyone who is a sports fan gets to experience something similar to what I got to experience as a Duke fan.
As I talked about earlier, in 2022 I am not much of a Duke fan anymore. It's the mid major Chirp Chirp life for me now. But every year, when March rolls around, I'm 12 years old all over again. It's not the same, but I still want Duke to win the whole thing every year. I want to live and die with every possession like I had done for so long growing up. I want to experience the heartbreak. I want to experience the joy when they win. Because that is what life is all about! It's about experiencing every emotion under the sun, dealing with them, and moving forward. That's what being a sports fan gives us, the opportunity to live vicariously through people who are much more gifted than us athletically. To laugh, to yell, to cry, to jump up and down, to get nervous, to be happy, and to be mad. We need to feel those emotions as human beings. Sports gives us those emotions in a way that nothing else can. So as an adult in a legal gambling state, I give myself the opportunity to feel like its 2006 again by betting on Duke to win their tournament games. I want to win all my bets, but when I bet on Duke in the tournament, I really really really really want to win those bets. The monetary value of the wagers is irrelevant, as it is just a fun way to get me more invested into the games. So on Sunday, when Michigan State was leading Duke 70-65 with under 3 minutes left in the game, it kind of dawned on me that this was it. Duke ended up winning in spectacular fashion to move onto the Sweet 16, but this chapter of Duke basketball is closing at the end of this season. The only chapter I've ever known.
The Michigan State vs Duke game was the first time I have really felt a single ounce of emotion towards Coach K retiring at the end of the season. It's actually very exciting to me that Jon Scheyer will be the next Duke basketball coach. His last game as a player in a Duke uniform happened to be the 2010 National Championship game that I was at. I was even wearing my black, number 30 "Jon Scheyer" jersey at the game. So to see one of my favorite Duke players of all time become the head coach is awesome, though it does make me feel a little old at the same time. But Scheyer is not Coach K, and he never will be Coach K. This was the realization I had that Duke basketball will never be quite the same again. No matter what happens going forward, things will feel different. Much like Disney's attempt to reboot Star Wars, no matter how much it may look the same, sound the same, and even feel the same at times, it will never actually be the same as the original. And if Duke is the evil empire, Coach K is certainly Darth Vader. Which makes Jon Scheyer Kylo Ren. In Star Wars, Vader and Ren look similar, they act similar, the story is even similar, but it's just not the same. For Duke basketball fans, as well as the Duke basketball haters, this is it. I've said that a couple times in this post, and it means exactly that. There is no explanation needed, there is no way to describe how things will be different or why they will feel different in the future. They just will be. With this chapter of Duke basketball closing, the only thing I can think to say to end this is thank you...
Thank you Duke basketball for everything. Thank you for making me feel as sad as I've ever felt in my life. Thank you for every heartbreak along the way, every North Carolina game that went to the wrong shade of blue, and every soul crushing tournament defeat. All the tough moments only made the great ones so much sweeter. So thank you for all the wins, the ACC Championships, and the two National Championships I got to witness as a die hard Blue Devil fan. Thank you to every player and coach who was a part of bringing me an indescribable amount of joy year in and year out. Most of all, thank you for the coolest night I'll ever have as a sports fan. A moment that every sports fan deserves to get from their team. And thank you for still being here. Thank you for still making me feel like that little kid who loved Duke basketball more than anything else in the world every March. It's been a hell of a ride.
Let's. Go. Duke.
