It was a painful loss, but it has company in Duke’s oeuvre of embarrassing March Madness exits. This is a very proud program that has seen some of the best NBA prospects of the last decade pass through its doors, without a title to show for it since they won it all in 2015 under Mike Krzyzewski.
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You can’t do it without some games that make you want to crawl into a hole in the ground.
Here’s a list of the Blue Devils’ worst NCAA tournament losses in the last 11 non-title years. It’s worth noting that the Blue Devils didn’t make the tournament in 2021 when they were 13-11 and didn’t have any tournaments to play in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Three of their losses (2016, 2018, 2023) were also lower seeds and therefore not included.
6. No. 2 Duke vs. No. 7 South Carolina, 2017 second round
Top scorers: Jayson Tatum, Luke Kennard
Tatum, Kennard and Grayson Allen enjoyed successful NBA careers, but their time together in college wasn’t ideal.
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Duke was ranked No. 1 in the preseason AP poll with Allen a contender for National Player of the Year and Tatum and Harry Giles looming as the program’s next big freshmen. Duke’s best teams under Mike Krzyzewski combined veteran leaders and NBA lottery-bound freshmen, and this one definitely fits the bill.
It was curious, then, that this team didn’t really get going until Kennard, a five-star recruit in his second year, became the team’s No. 1 offensive option and became an All-American. That rework seemed to save Duke’s season, until it fell apart against a South Carolina team ready for everything it had.
Duke simply couldn’t stop the Gamecocks’ Sindarius Thornwell in the second half, and the dysfunction of a season resurfaced.
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5. No. 4 Duke vs. No. 11 NC State, 2024 Elite Eight
Top scorers: Kyle Filipowski, Jared McCain
From an NBA standpoint, this is probably the least talented Duke team on this list. The No. 4 seed Blue Devils looked good, not great in their second year under Scheyer, but beat No. 1 Houston in the Sweet 16 to set up what looked like an extremely favorable matchup to reach the Final Four.
NC State only made the tournament thanks to a record-breaking ACC tournament, which included a win over Duke. A new victory for the Wolfpack was a difficult task, right?
Good?
Duke has had better teams lose in the tournament, but there have been few times when a loss like that hit so close to home, against an in-state foe they don’t even call their biggest rival.
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4. No. 1 Duke vs. No. 2 UConn, 2026 Elite Eight
Top scorers: Cameron Boozer, Isaiah Evans
The No. 1 overall was at least polite enough to warn us that this March Madness race might not go as expected. They needed comebacks to beat No. 16 seed Siena and No. 5 seed St. John’s, with the former becoming the first No. 16 seed to hold a double-digit halftime lead over a No. 1 seed.
But Duke didn’t need a comeback to beat UConn. I just needed to hold on. Duke led by as many as 19 points in the first half, but Dan Hurley’s group continued to dwindle. However, even then, Duke had to hold the ball with 10 seconds left, instead of…this.
It was a mortifying collapse. But it also wasn’t Duke’s most galling collapse in the past two years.
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3. No. 1 Duke vs. No. 2 Michigan State, 2019 Elite Eight
Top scorers: Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett
Williamson’s NBA career has been tougher than expected, but you can’t forget how much of a sensation he was in his only year at Duke, or how he was only the third-best freshman in some recruiting rankings.
Williamson, Barrett and Cam Reddish gave Duke the top three recruits in the country and they absolutely lived up to the hype (collectively). That team felt almost inevitable, then No. 2 seed Michigan State showed it was no slouch either. In one of Tom Izzo’s best coaching jobs, the Spartans withstood some inhumane stuff from Williamson to beat the tournament’s first overall seed.
By the standard of missed opportunities, this team could top anyone on this list. At least last year’s team of Cooper Flagg and Co., who we could describe as equally talented, made it to the Final Four.
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2. No. 1 Duke vs. No. 1 Houston, 2025 Final Four
Top scorers: Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel
The best thing that can be said about last year’s loss is that it was a quality matchup, a fellow No. 1 seed, and it required a very questionable call by the referees.
The rest, well, let’s remember how Duke led by up to 14 in that game, the fifth-largest blown lead in Final Four historyand at nine with less than three minutes left. Flagg appeared to throw multiple daggers, but Houston continued to hang around as the Blue Devils’ offense went cold at all, with just one field goal in the final 10 minutes.
Duke entered the Final Four as the favorite to win it all and needed only a semblance of offense from a team with three projected lottery picks, one of them perhaps the best All-American prospect since Anthony Davis or LeBron James, to reach the championship game against Florida.
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Instead, it suffered what would be the worst loss of all time for most programs. But not Duke.
1. Duke No. 2 vs. No. 8 UNC, 2022 Final Four
Top scorers: Paolo Banchero, Wendell Moore Jr.
Let’s be real: Duke could have blown a 50-point lead on Sunday and wouldn’t have been No. 1 on this list.
There’s no redemption in facing your biggest rival (the biggest rivalry in all of college basketball) for the first time in the NCAA Tournament, in the Final Four, in your legendary coach’s last game, and losing to a No. 8 seed in a complete YOLO run, with Caleb Love providing the dagger.
It doesn’t matter what Duke does from now on and how many rings Jon Scheyer or a successor ends up winning. For the rest of our lives, any Duke fan who publicly remembers the great Coach K will have to look over their shoulder, just to make sure there isn’t a smiling UNC fan about to remind them how it all ended.
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There is nothing better than that.