One (Third) and Done: Reliving Kyrie Irving’s 11-Game Duke Career
Nowadays, some people hiss at the notion of ‘one-and-done’ college basketball players.
They’ll say that guys should “stay all four years” or something about them “killing college basketball”…whatever that means.
While I am not here to pick a side, I do want to talk about a now-beloved NBA player who was even less than a ‘one-and-done’ player — Kyrie Irving. As it turned out, the future NBA Finals hero was more of a ‘one-third-and-done’ college player.
Do you remember anything from Kyrie’s Duke career? Probably not.
I know the only thing I remember was his Redick-esque cut-off white t-shirt.
Eleven games. One injury. And a surprising Sweet Sixteen exit.
Long before he was preserving LeBron’s legacy and the Cavaliers’ first-ever NBA Championship, and even longer before he was Boston’s savior, Kyrie Irving was just a skinny kid set to roam the floor at Cameron Indoor.
Born in Australia, Irving was a McDonald’s All-American at New Jersey’s St. Patrick High School — now coached by Mike Rice, the disgraced former Rutgers’ head coach. He landed at Duke as a five-star recruit, joining several future NBA players in hopes of bringing another National Championship to Durham.
The roster was seriously ridiculous; check out all the future NBA players from the 2010-11 Duke squad.
- Seth Curry (118 NBA games, currently with DAL)
- Andre Dawkins (4 NBA games, currently in G-League)
- Kyrie Irving (441 NBA games, currently with BOS)
- Ryan Kelly (163 NBA games, currently in Spain)
- Mason Plumlee (378 NBA games, currently with DEN)
- Miles Plumlee (320 NBA games, currently with ATL)
- Kyle Singler (356 NBA games, currently with OKC)
- Nolan Smith (84 NBA games, currently an assistant at Duke)
With all those dudes ready to roll, plus Coach K, a National Championship seemed like a near-certainty.
Until it wasn’t.
Irving and the Dukies started the season with an 8–0 record, blasting numerous top-tier teams like Michigan State, Oregon, Marquette, Kansas State, and Butler. The 6-foot-2 guard averaged 17.4 points per game during that period, scoring double-digits in all eight contests.
In his seventh game — versus the 6th-ranked Spartans — Irving exploded for 31 points and had the home crowd eating out of his hand. Besides displaying his ability to get to the line, Irving shot 66.7 percent in the game (which turned out to be a career high college-wise).
https://youtu.be/NnY-vNDxbXo
However, in the aforementioned Butler game, Irving suffered a serious injury to his toe — tearing a ligament and putting him on the shelf for the foreseeable future. Yet, with a plethora of dynamic and future NBA players, Duke went on to earn a №1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a date with an inferior Hampton team in the first round.
Then, just one day before the Round of 64, it was revealed that Kyrie was coming back for the Big Dance. The gang would be officially back together with a Final Four spot virtually with their name on it.
In the first two rounds, Irving came off the bench as not to disturb the mojo the current team was playing with. He scored double-figures in both games, notching 14 points versus Hampton in the first round and then 11 points against Michigan in the Round of 32.
(The Blue Devils barely squeezed by Tim Hardaway Jr. and Michigan in the second round, winning 73–71 in a near-home game played in Charlotte.)
At the same time Duke was squeezing by the Wolverines, the №5 seeded Arizona Wildcats were doing the same against Texas — a team led by Kyrie’s future teammate Tristan Thompson.
The Sweet Sixteen stage was now set, a Duke team with tons of NBA players versus an Arizona team that had only one real star, Derrick Williams. Ironically, Williams was also a teammate of Irving’s on the Cavs’ 2016-17 NBA Finals campaign.
Six years later, the events that transpired in this game are hard to believe.
Derrick Williams, the same guy who consistently collected postseason DNP’s for the Cavaliers last year, gave the Blue Devils the business. He dropped 31 points on Irving and the Dukies, pushing them to a 16-point, 93–77 win.
For the record, I remember this game vividly. The Wildcats were (+900) on the money line and I put up $100 to win $900. Me and my homeboys were at a bar in White Plains, sitting next to a guy calling in a $1,000 bet on Duke. I tried talking him out of it but he was a total douche…at least I tried.
It should be noted that Irving also had a very good game. He scored 28 points on 9 of 15 shooting but was not enough to overcome Williams’ outburst and Nolan Smith’s six turnovers.
Both Irving and Williams came out in the NBA Draft the following year, and while Williams won the battle in the Sweet Sixteen — and probably reminded Kyrie every day in practice— I’d take a long NBA career over college success any day.