In this video posted on X.com, Jay Bilas raises a question we have wondered about for years: what would have happened if Kyrie Irving had been healthy during his one year at Duke?
He thinks the Blue Devils might have won the national championship but we’d take that a step further: we think Duke might have pulled off an undefeated national championship. Why?
Let’s look.
With Irving, Duke won the first seven games and another seven after he was injured.
The Blue Devils lost to Florida State 66-61, St. John’s 93-78, Virginia Tech 64-60, UNC 81-67 and Arizona in the NCAA tournament 93-77.
All the losses were away from Cameron Indoor Stadium. Two were less than five points.
The UNC game would probably have been the riskiest, but Duke beat them twice without Irving. No reason to think they wouldn’t have won in Chapel Hill with him.
Arizona came at Duke in a big way during the NCAA tournament, but Irving had only been back for two games prior to that one and wasn’t fully re-incorporated into the lineup. It would have been different had he been.
If they had won that one, the Blue Devils would have seen UConn in the regional finals. Then it would be Florida and a rematch with Butler – and the Devils handled Butler well before Irving’s injury.
The one game we haven’t talked about is St. John’s in the Garden, where Duke lost 93-78, which admittedly is a big loss.
Consider, if you will, what that game would have done for Irving personally, had he been able to play: the best freshman in the country would have been able to stake his claim to greatness in Madison Square Garden: knowing what we know about his gifts, what do you think would have happened? Do we have to say it?
Okay, fine, we’ll say it: he would have gutted the Johnnies like an East River fish.
Keep in mind too that Duke featured the Plumlee Brothers, Mason and Miles, Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, Seth Curry, Ryan Kelly, Tyler Thornton and Andre Dawkins – plenty of talent to compliment the future Hall of Famer Irving.
Bilas is right – no one was equipped to stop Irving in college and Duke would almost certainly have won the national championship. We can’t know that for certain of course, just as we can’t know that the Devils would have gone undefeated. Give that team Irving and his spectacular gifts for the entire season though and it’s hard to imagine anyone taking that team out. He was that good, and as a freshman, too.
It’ll always be one of the great what-ifs of Duke Basketball.
