Duke Basketball: Blue Devils on pace to require record-tying rafter space

The Duke basketball team enters the NCAA Tournament with the No. 1 overall seed and half of the necessary accomplishments to tie four previous squads for the most banners in program history.

As a lesson for those Duke basketball fans not lucky enough to regularly visit Cameron Indoor Stadium and study its rafters, each season starts with the Blue Devils having a chance to hang four banners by season’s end from accomplishing the following feats:

Winning the ACC Tournament and/or finishing first in the conference for the regular season
Finishing with a final No. 1 ranking in the AP Poll and/or USA Today Coaches Poll
Earning a trip to the Final Four
Winning the NCAA Tournament

Four teams to date — ’91, ’92, ’01, and ’10 — have accomplished the necessary feats to earn each of the above.

However, only two — ’92 and ’01 — have filled out all four banners entirely, meaning both possible accomplishments on the ACC banner as well as the banner recognizing a No. 1 ranking including both the AP Poll, which puts out a final ranking the week before the Big Dance, and the USA Today Coaches Poll, which puts out a final ranking the week after the Big Dance with the top spot always going to the winner of the Big Dance.

The current squad finished third in the ACC during the regular season — which may have been different if not for the 3-3 record without the services of its ACC Player of the Year, freshman Zion Williamson — and is therefore out of contention to join the ’92 and ’01 squads with the above distinction. That being said, this team, sporting a 29-5 overall record and No. 1 overall seed, is halfway to becoming just the third team with four banners while having at least three filled to the max.

With a 73-63 win over Florida State in Charlotte on Saturday night, the Blue Devils became the program’s 21st squad — three more than second-best UNC — to require space in the rafters for a banner that lists an ACC Tournament Championship.

And the three wins in Charlotte propelled the Blue Devils from No. 5 to the No. 1 spot in the season’s final AP Top 25 Poll, released on Monday, marking the first such achievement for the program since 2006 and eighth overall. All eight have occurred during the 39-year tenure of 72-year-old Mike Krzyzewski, who has now passed the late John Wooden’s seven final AP No. 1 rankings for the all-time most by a coach.

Also, all eight — ’86, ’92, ’99, ’00, ’01, ’02, ’06, and now ’19 — have followed an ACC Championship, meaning this is the eighth time that a Duke team has secured two banners by this point in the season.

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Of the seven before this year, only four — ’86, ’92, ’99, and ’01 — survived long enough to earn the third of four possible banners by reaching the Final Four. And, of course, only two of those — ’92 and ’01 — went on to earn the most coveted banner of all with a win on a Monday night in April.

In summary, starting with the 7:10 p.m. matchup on Friday against Wednesday’s winner between No. 16 seeds North Carolina Central and North Dakota State, if Zion and Co. are able to finish with six straight wins, newcomers to Cameron in the coming seasons will notice the accomplishments of the ’19 squad as often as any.

And if that happens, along with Williamson performing as magnificently as he did over the weekend while earning the tournament’s MVP honor, those newcomers should also notice — if the program was to do the right thing as a result — a banner signifying the retirement of Williamson’s jersey number (would be the 14th retired jersey).

Related Story. Zion's jersey number belongs in the rafters. light

After all, if six more wins are in store, despite his definite departure for the NBA after the sixth win, it would be tough to argue against anyone who claims that jersey number matches Williamson’s ranking among all former Blue Devils (apologies to Christian Laettner).

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