Boozer and Scheyer forming twin pillars of the 2001 and 2010 championship dearth formed the underlying bedrock to this year’s title expectations. The two-time ACC champions under Scheyer’s head coaching regime followed last year’s Cooper Flagg-led season with the five-star commitment of No. 3 overall recruit Cameron Boozer – the son of Boozer. Alongside his twin brother Cayden – another five star recruit at point guard – the transition away from the one-year Flagg era immediately broke through a glass ceiling when Duke won its first 11 games to start the season.
Now on the back end of a second nine-game winning streak, the Blue Devils are building one of those seasons that ends on a neutral court watched by millions of national television viewers. They’re big, they’re nasty, they’re deep, and they have a program that’s arguably at its hungriest for a national championship. No matter what happens on Tuesday night against Boston College, Duke is unlikely to drop out of the top-25 before the season ends, and nothing across the rest of the year or the ACC Tournament could keep the Blue Devils away from the NCAA Tournament.
“[February is] a month to learn, I hope,” said Scheyer during Monday’s weekly ACC coaches Zoom. “I think it’s a month to grow. We learned what our identity can be, and then in February, you want to continue to elevate these things that you’ve learned this past month, in my mind. I think that’s exactly where we’re at.”
Earl Grant‘s team walks into that atmosphere with a chip on its own shoulder. BC’s never won in Cameron Indoor Stadium and usually serve as cannon fodder for the Crazies located around its cramped seating bowl. The last victory over Duke occurred when Jerome Robinson, Ky Bowman, Jordan Chatman, Nik Popovic and an upstart, NIT-bound group of Eagles defeated Marvin Bagley, Grayson Allen and the undefeated, No. 1-ranked team in the nation on a snowy afternoon in Chestnut Hill. Before that, a nine-year gap extended BC to a 2009 court-storming win by Tyrese Rice and Joe Trapani, and prior to that, the only other win over the Blue Devils occurred when the No. 11-seeded Eagles won a 1985 NCAA quarterfinal game over third-seeded Duke in the Houston as part of the Midwest Regional.
Neither Troy Bell nor Craig Smith, Jared Dudley or any other of Boston College’s vaunted historical programs upended the mighty Duke dynasty, and never have the Eagles won at Cameron Indoor Stadium. It’s the impossible white whale situated off of Route 751 in Durham, North Carolina, and it’s the one fish that would stamp an upset capable of ricocheting across college basketball.
On with the preview of Tuesday night’s test at Duke:
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Duke Storylines (Tom Brady Edition)
Life is not about how much you succeed, it’s about what happens when you fail.
It’s a broken record to continue highlighting BC’s near-misses in close games. Last week’s loss to Virginia was the ninth time that the Eagles failed to beat a team in a score decided by 10 points or less, and the constant drumbeat discussing the minute differences between a 9-12 overall record and a possible trip to the NCAA Tournament bubble becomes repetitive in the face of Scheyer’s earlier point about how a team has an identity by the calendar’s turn into February.
It still bears mentioning, though, that BC’s progress is keeping the team in relevant positioning against highly-touted opponents. For three months, a team heavily disregarded by oddsmakers and prognosticators found its way into stiff competition against some of the ACC’s best teams, and narrowly missing an opportunity to knock Virginia from its lofty perch did little to diminish the team’s chances at a conference tournament berth. Even with Duke on the horizon, few teams – and no coaches – are taking BC lightly under the scary premise of stepping on a potential basketball landmine.
“A ton of respect for Coach Grant and [BC’s] team,” said Virginia head coach Ryan Odom after Saturday’s seven-point decision. “I’m just really impressed, and watching them on film, the togetherness that they play with, the energy that they have on both sides of the ball – their defense is very similar, numbers-wise, to ours, and they’re tough to score on. They really have guards that can get to the basket, bigs that have some skill inside and outside. They gave us everything that we could handle.”
Duke legitimately hasn’t been tested since its four-point escape against Florida State preceded a two-game run of narrow wins over Louisville and SMU, and the comeback from the nine-point first half deficit in Kentucky was loosened by a 20-point second half advantage and an 11-point win. Even then, the rematch in Durham ended with a 31-point blowout over the Cardinals on the back end of a 21-point win over Wake Forest, a 30-point win over Stanford and a 15-point win over Cal in which the Golden Bears didn’t lead over the final 23 minutes in a late-night game on the West Coast.
Transitively speaking, that means BC’s most direct opportunity to challenge Duke requires the Blue Devils to play into an unfamiliar style. Even in the FSU game, Duke scored 91 points and shot 44 percent on three pointers while being sent to the line for 25 free throw attempts, and the difference emerged from the razor-thin margin caused by five additional fouls drawn by the Blue Devils. Typically, the Eagles can force a game into junk opportunities with a stingy defense, so play the perfect game and force Duke into situations that haven’t appeared throughout the first 21 games.
Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled.
Just stop Duke, and the rest will fall into place. Easy enough, right? It’s definitely not a huge ask to clamp an offense with the nation’s second-leading scorer and a potential No. 1 overall pick in next summer’s NBA Draft.
Consider the numbers on Boozer compared to AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson. From a production standpoint, Boozer’s 24 points per game on 59 percent shooting and 38 percent from outside dwarfs both Peterson’s 19 points on 36 percent shooting and Dybantsa’s 23 points on 32 percent from outside, and he’s within a rebound or two per game of averaging a double-double with just under four assists per game. He’s the only player to score 30 points in multiple ACC games, and he’s the only player with 30-plus points in four overall games. Defensively, his 1.5 steals per game jump by another half-steal per game in conference play.
Even the analytics crowd is already crowning him with its Player of the Year Award. From a KenPom setting, his 2.777 POY rating is nearly one full point better than Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson, and he’s tied with Houston’s Kingston Flemings for the national lead in Game MVPs. Both are two awards higher than Northwestern’s Nick Martinelli, currently the only scorer better than Boozer.
Stopping him is an impossible fallacy, so it’s better for BC to avoid taking one-on-one decisions against Duke until the defense establishes a foothold. The biggest and most prevalent strength to the Eagles stems from their ability to play a five-person defense capable of switching off-man and preventing ball movement around the perimeter, and taking away other options will force Boozer to make plays by himself. In that situation, he’s going to eat and score points, but the aggregate removes the other options that push Duke upwards of 85-90 points in a game.
“We played a great game [against Virginia],” said BC head coach Earl Grant. “We had a good plan. We got better. We didn’t win, but we got better, and now we have to learn from it and try to figure out how we can get ready for the next game.”
If you don’t play to win, don’t play at all.
ESPN’s analytics barely notch a one percent chance of a Boston College victory, and the Blue Devils are a 20-1 megalith ranked fourth in the nation. They haven’t lost a conference game and haven’t been totally challenged for the past month. They rank fourth in the nation in offensive rating and defensive rating against one of the top-25 toughest schedules in Division I. They’re headed for a double-bye in the ACC Tournament and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Social media is already laughing at BC’s chances of winning this game. I saw someone refer to this game as a guaranteed win for Duke, and someone else referred to the upcoming game as an upcoming “disaster.” There is zero belief in Grant or Boston College for this game, and there’s zero opportunities for anyone to believe in the Eagles or their growth.
I’m not saying Boston College is walking out of Cameron Indoor Stadium with a win – that’s never happened before, so there’s absolutely no history supporting that claim – and this game very well could end with Duke blowing out another opponent. There’s actually zero shame in that happening to anyone because the only blemish on that team’s roster is a one-point loss at Madison Square Garden. Absolutely nobody should predict a BC victory in this situation.
What I am saying, though, is that no team ever prepares to lose a game. The number of games and opponents are too precious to simply overlook a single opponent, and February has a way of heightening those last road trips, those last flights, those last opportunities that eventually fade into a player’s past.
From a statistical standpoint, BC has the defensive chops to hang with any team in the nation, and the Eagles are analytically better than their overall record implies. It’s a broken record, sure, but BC is probably six-to-10 possessions away from having 15-or-16 wins in a season in which its roster overturned virtually everyone. As the team is gelling, it’s playing better, and now it needs to enhance its identity on the game’s biggest stage.
*****
Question Box
Who are Duke’s secondary options?
Isaiah Evans and Patrick Ngongba were both parts of Duke’s Final Four team, and both returned alongside Caleb Foster to form expanded roles on both ends of the floor. Ngongba is particularly stubborn as a six-foot, 11-inch sophomore filling the role once occupied by Cooper Flagg, but his increased production to 11 points and six boards per game represents a quadrupling of his output over doubled minutes. He’s naturally lost some efficiency within that role, but the former four-star recruit has a seven-foot, four-inch wingspan that makes attacking the rim nearly impossible.
Evans, meanwhile, is a backcourt shooting guard with a rhythm movement perfectly complementing his spot-up ability. His vision for the basket is unmatched among natural scorers, to which his ball movement is nearly unrequired as a skill. The latest NBA mock draft on ESPN projects him to a late first round pick that’ll provide a team like Boston with a complementary shooter to its main component parts.
Tell me about Dame Sarr?
Duke routinely recruits some of the best incoming freshmen in the nation, and Boozer, along with his brother, is a natural fit for the program once represented by their NBA All-Star father. Perhaps the scariest addition to the oyster, though, is Sarr, a six-foot, eight-inch Italian import currently averaging just six points and three rebounds on bench minutes for the Blue Devils.
Maybe it’s because his size and athleticism makes him a unique depth fit for NBA teams, but Sarr’s been compared to previous European imports at the professional level. He played for Barcelona’s first team in a EuroLeague win over Panathinaikos in 2023 and he scored 21 points in March in a Liga ACB win over CB Breogan. A shift to college from an outright professional career is one of those underrated storylines that’s left to headlines surrounding the NBA G League, but the fact that Sarr is a full-blown European professional athlete makes him one of the more dangerous threats on both ends of the floor.
How much are UNC fans rooting for BC?
My younger daughter’s preschool best friend is another girl that started with her when they began daycare as toddlers. We became good friends with her parents, who are absolutely the best kind of people, and have now gotten to that point where you get to share stories from your younger college days. Finding out her mother went to North Carolina immediately lit me up as a college sports fan, but finding out that she was in the pep band for UNC basketball games made it even better for me to share stories about college atmospheres and the joy that I’ve received from covering the ACC over the years.
Her stories reinforced my respect and love for Roy Williams – I’ll never forget when he checked into the postgame press conference at BC after suffering a vertigo attack on the sidelines – but beyond that, I’m sure that I’d love to shoot a text or message after this game. If the impossible happened, that’d be good and big fun for me.
The best way to make a Carolina fan happy is at Duke’s expense.
*****
BC-Duke X Factor
A little less conversation, a little more action please.
All this aggravation ain’t satisfactionin’ me.
A little more bite and a little less bark.
A little less fight and a little more spark.
Close your mouth and open up your heart,
And Baby satisfy me. Satisfy me, Baby.
-Elvis Presley, “A Little Less Conversation”
Okay, I’ll admit it – big Elvis fan over here. I find it hilarious that the man’s hips caused so much controversy with where we’re currently taking our television shows, but I find that Elvis has an ongoing legacy because of his ability to combine talent with flash. He’s culturally more relevant than anyone in music history – short of maybe the Beatles – and he redefined an entire generation’s culture through his fashion, his identity and his music. Long story short, country music and rock and roll probably aren’t in their current positions without Elvis, and the same could be said about blues or even hip hop.
Boston College won’t match up with Duke in the purest of basketball terms. The Blue Devils have a surefire No. 1 pick in Cameron Boozer and future first rounders in Ngongba, Evans and Sarr. Even without a national championship run, Jon Scheyer quietly assembled a group arguably more talented than last year’s team, and last year’s Blue Devils had three top-10 picks in Flagg, Kon Kneuppel and Khama Maluach.
Five Duke players were chosen in last year’s draft, the last of which were Sion James and Tyrese Proctor, but this year’s team is ultimately more complete on both ends of the floor. From a defensive standpoint, last year’s Devils were slightly behind Houston, Tennessee and Michigan State, and the difference between seeing that top-based offense compete against a No. 1 defense is why the Final Four ended in the semifinal game against the Cougars.
Tuesday night’s game against BC is another of those matchups pitting Duke against a top-ranked defense, but the biggest issue facing the Eagles centers more around its offense and the ongoing search for consistency. Saturday’s game against Virginia got the team closer to that stage when Fred Payne and Donald Hand, Jr. combined for 37 points on 15-of-33 shooting alongside multiple outbursts from Jayden Hastings and Boden Kapke, so building that identity into the defense side of the ball is a way to move BC past Duke.
It’ll take a Herculean effort, but there are target numbers for the Eagles. Points, Shooting percentage, three-point attempts, fouls, defensive stops – they all play into this game and the hunt to pull off an upset.
*****
Scoreboard Watching
A number of ranked teams are in action on Tuesday night as they continue to churn towards the end of the regular season, and three games among six ACC teams offers juicy subplots to a jammed standings table still sorting its way towards postseason seeding. A triple-header includes two ranked teams with No. 4 Duke hosting BC at 7 p.m. and No. 18 Virginia hosting Pitt at 9 p.m. on the ACC Network slot, and a separate matchup between SMU and NC State at 9 p.m. gives the league a chance to start separating some teams among the middle tiers.
Among the national slate, No. 23 Miami of Ohio continues churning its way towards an undefeated season with a 6:30 p.m. tipoff at Buffalo, but the highlight among the non-conference slate is arguably No. 3 UConn’s game against Xavier. Given that St. John’s is on the horizon, an up-and-down Musketeers team is coming off of a slump-busting win over DePaul after dropping games to Seton Hall, ST. John’s and Creighton. Tip-off there is at 7 p.m. on Peacock and NBC Sports Network, while the No. 22 Johnnies play DePaul at 8 p.m. on Peacock.
In the SEC, No. 25 Tennessee hosts Ole Miss at 7 p.m. on ESPN2, and a later game between No. 19 Saint Louis and Davidson dots a 9 p.m. tip on CBS Sports Network. Next to Miami, the Billikens are probably the biggest story in the mid-major college basketball game after opening their year with a 21-1 record with the only loss coming in a one-point non-conference game against Stanford.
*****
This Random Day In History
The New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks opened the 2025 season with some of the lowest likelihoods of making the Super Bowl. Neither team expected to dance into February, least of all the Patriots and their consecutive four-win seasons. When Sunday rolls around, this year’s team has the opportunity to become one of the longest-shot Patriot teams to ever win the Super Bowl, a scene reminiscent of the 2001 team that won Super Bowl XXXVI.
Still recognized as the second-biggest upset in Super Bowl history and the biggest upset since the AFL-NFL merger, the Patriots defeated the Rams for their first league championship in franchise history on February 3, 2002. Even while being outgained 427-267 by the Greatest Show On Turf, New England built a 17-3 lead before St. Louis marched through the fourth quarter and tied the game with a pair of touchdown drives. Handed the ball with 90 seconds on the clock and no timeouts, Tom Brady executed the first legendary drive of his career and set up a 48-yard field goal by Adam Vinatieri as time expired.
Twenty-four years later, the New England dynasty is revived and ready for its next glorious moment. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are no longer in town, but the Mike Vrabel-Drake Maye era has an opportunity to complete a breakthrough against a Seattle team equally possessing some of the longest odds in the Super Bowl era.
*****
Pregame Quote and Final Thoughts
Snowman: Hey Bandit, me and Fred’s got a question.
Bandit: What you and Fred want?
Snowman: How come we doing this?
Bandit: Well, why not?
Snowman: Well they said it couldn’t be done.
Bandit: Well that’s the reason, son!
Snowman: That’s good with Fred. We’re clear.
-Smokey and the Bandit
Beating Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium is an impossible task. Boston College has never won in Durham, and this year’s Blue Devil team is heading towards a No. 1 seed in the national tournament. Its players are future NBA superstars and cornerstones of franchise futures. A second consecutive Final Four berth is likely in the cards, and BC is on the tail end of a sub-.500 season that’s been littered with disappointing near misses.
Nearly everyone’s saying it can’t be done. Maybe that’s the reason why it can happen.
Boston College and No. 4 Duke tip off on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. from Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, North Carolina. National television coverage is available on the ACC Network with streaming available through ESPN’s family of Internet and mobile device apps. Radio coverage available through the Boston College Sports Network, locally in Boston on WEEI 850 AM.
