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The Encyclopedia of Duke Basketball
By John Roth, Ned Hinshaw Duke University Press
Copyright © 2006 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-9836-3
CHAPTER 1
Dateline Duke
1906-1924: Basketball at Trinity College
1906
March 2. Trinity plays its first intercollegiate basketball game, dropping a 24-10 decision to Wake Forest at Angier B. Duke Gymnasium.
1908
Feb. 18. Sophomore William B. Lilly, 24-year-old captain of the Trinity basketball team, dies of pneumonia at Watts Hospital, stunning the campus community.
1912
Trinity enjoys its best season under the program's founder W W. "Cap" Card, going 6-0 until falling to N.C. State in Card's last game on the sideline. Card had coached the team for seven years with no pay; his full-time job is director of physical education at the Trinity gym.
1913
J. E. "Big Jennie" Brinn, a former Trinity player, is hired as the first official basketball coach in school history; his biggest win comes by a 16-15 count over Trinity's nemesis Wake Forest — making Trinity the first North Carolina school to win a game at Wake.
1914
Trinity closes its season with a 33 - 25 victory at N.C. State, the first overtime game in school history.
1917
Under the guidance of coach Chick Doak and fueled by the play of captain Linville "Hip" Martin, Trinity posts its first 20-win season and claims the state championship.
1919
Feb. 11. A 22 -19 victory over N.C. State is the highlight contest of a season in which Trinity does not have an official head coach. Sophomore starting forward Henry Cole doubles as team captain and coach.
1920
Jan. 24. Trinity welcomes North Carolina to campus for the first-ever basketball game between the archrival institutions and drops a 36 - 25 decision.
March 1. Before 1,000 fans in Chapel Hill, Trinity posts its first victory over North Carolina, 19 -18, in a game that was rescheduled from February 20 because of an influenza outbreak on the Trinity campus.
March 12. Down by a point with two minutes left, Trinity gets a half-court basket from George "Brick" Starling to secure a victory over N.C. State in the state championship game at Raleigh.
1921
March 5. Trinity meets North Carolina for the state championship at Raleigh Auditorium and suffers a 55 -18 defeat. Trinity coach Floyd Egan misses the contest, confined to his bed with influenza, while most of his players have been sick for several days before the game.
1922
March 7. The crowd arrives an hour early and packs Trinity's Angier Duke Gym for the season finale with North Carolina, but the home-court advantage is not enough to prevent a narrow UNC win.
Sept. 11. Excavation work begins at the site for Trinity's proposed new gymnasium.
Oct. 4. The Trinity Chronicle, in a football headline on the front page, begins referring to the school's sports teams as the Blue Devils. A campus contest to pick a mascot the previous year had returned inconclusive results.
1923
March 12. Everett Spikes pours in 20 points and captain Jimmy Simpson adds 16 as Trinity defeats Guilford in the last game played in Angier Duke Gym.
1924
Jan. 7. Trinity plays its first game in the new Alumni Memorial Gymnasium, defeating Mercer 29 - 25.
Dec. 11. The tobacco industrialist James B. Duke creates a $40 million charitable trust fund, a portion of which leads to the founding of Duke University from Trinity College.
1925-1939: Formative Years under Eddie Cameron
1926
Sept. 25. After a year of seasoning as the football coach at Greenbriar Military Academy, 24-year-old Eddie Cameron coaches his first athletic contest at Duke—a 21 - 7 victory by the freshman football team over Apprentice. Cameron also serves as freshman basketball coach during his first two years in Durham.
1928
Dec. 15. Duke officially becomes the 23rd member of the Southern Conference, the league it would call home for 25 years.
1929
Jan. 8. Duke loses to Georgetown 48-33 in Eddie Cameron's debut contest as head basketball coach.
Feb. 2. Cameron's first team defeats North Carolina 36 - 20, ending a 16-game losing streak against UNC. The Blue Devils' last win in the series had come as Trinity College in 1921.
March 5. Duke, seeded No. 10, loses to N.C. State in the Southern Conference Tournament championship game at Atlanta to cap off its first season in the league, after winning three close games to reach the final. Atlanta journalists declare Duke guard Bill Werber one of the outstanding players in the history of the tournament. Werber, also a baseball star, becomes Duke's first All-America in the following season.
1930
Dec. 19. Duke begins the 1930-31 season by falling to Villanova 22 - 21 in the first varsity basketball game played on the newly opened West Campus, at the facility later known as Card Gym.
1933
Jan. 31. About 5,000 fans fill every inch of Duke's home gym for a battle with North Carolina, setting a state attendance record. Several hundred are turned away and miss a 36 - 32 Duke victory in which the Blue Devils rally from a 31 25 deficit by outscoring the Tar Heels 11-1 down the stretch. Jim Thompson leads the way with 14 points as Duke takes the lead in the Big Five race.
1934
March 3. After knocking off Washington & Lee twice during the regular season, Duke suffers a last-second loss to coach Eddie Cameron's alma mater in the championship game of the Southern Conference Tournament.
1938
March 6. Having upset top-seeded North Carolina in the regular-season finale and No. 2 N.C. State in the opening round of the Southern Conference Tournament, Duke's "never a dull moment boys" clip Clemson 40 - 30 to claim the program's first league championship.
1939
April. Construction begins on Duke's new indoor stadium. The project was conceived in 1935 but takes only nine months to complete once construction gets under way.
Dec. 16. The last varsity game at Duke Gymnasium is a 59 - 28 destruction of Hampden-Sydney in which Glenn Price and Clyde Allen share scoring honors with 12 points apiece.
1940-1949: New Stadium, New Success
1940
Jan. 6. Duke dedicates its new Indoor Stadium, the East Coast's largest arena south of Philadelphia, with a 36 - 27 victory over Princeton in front of an audience of 8,000 that includes numerous local dignitaries and former Blue Devil players.
1941
Feb. 20. Cedric Loftis, Garland Loftis, and Bob Gantt combine for 45 points as the Blue Imps freshman team defeats North Carolina 57-42 to complete an 11-2 season. Gantt and the Loftis brothers, who had helped Durham High School to 69 consecutive wins before they matriculated to Duke, are the three top scorers for the 1941 freshmen team.
1942
March 7. Eddie Cameron coaches his final basketball game, guiding Duke to a 45 - 34 victory over N.C. State in the Southern Conference Tournament championship contest to finish the season with a 22 - 2 record.
Dec. 17. Gerry Gerard launches his Duke basketball coaching career with a narrow loss to Carolina Pre-Flight, but goes on to win 20 games in his initial season. With Cameron taking over the football coaching and athletics director duties because of Wallace Wade's departure for the war, soccer coach and intramural director Gerard had been tabbed to run the basketball program.
1943
Feb. 26. Duke Indoor Stadium is the site of a unique Big Five doubleheader. N.C. State defeats Wake Forest in the opener, while the Blue Devils top North Carolina 43 - 24 in the second game. (Davidson is considered the other member of the state's Big Five schools.)
March 6. Gerard's first team loses to George Washington in the Southern Conference Tournament final, but the Blue Devils' Gordon Carver, another Durham High product, finishes as the tourney's leading scorer with 40 points.
1944
Feb. 26. During the peak of the war, Duke defeats North Carolina by 17 points to win the Southern Conference Tournament. Tennessee transfer Bill Wright leads the way with 15 points. Facing a schedule loaded with military teams, Duke had gone 10 -13 during the regular season, with two losses to UNC.
1946
Feb. 16. Duke Indoor Stadium enjoys its first official sellout crowd of 8,800 for a 54-44 loss to North Carolina. Sold out weeks in advance, the game is played before the largest crowd to attend a college basketball game south of Philadelphia's Convention Hall. Aside from being a factor in the Southern Conference race, the game features the return of former Durham High hero Horace "Bones" McKinney to his hometown. McKinney paces the Tar Heel win with 21 points.
March 2. Playing in the championship game for the seventh straight year, Duke rides high-scoring forward Ed Koffenberger to a 49 - 30 victory over Wake Forest for the Blue Devils' fifth (and final) Southern Conference crown.
Nov. 1. The Basketball Association of America, which will later evolve into the NBA, launches its first season. The roster for the Washington Capitols (coached by Red Auerbach) includes Bob Gantt, a 6 - 4 center from Duke, making him the Blue Devils' first NBA player. He sees action in 23 games in his only year in the league.
1947
Feb. 4. Facing Washington & Lee at Lynchburg, Va., Ed Koffenberger becomes the first Duke player to record 30 points in a game, hitting 13 field goals and four free throws in a 71 - 57 victory.
March 6. The Southern Conference Tournament begins a four-year run at Duke Indoor Stadium. The event was moved from its traditional home at tiny Raleigh Memorial Auditorium because over 10,000 advance ticket orders were received, mostly the result of increased interest in coach Everett Case's flashy Wolfpack. The Blue Devils lose the opener by two points to South Carolina. N.C. State will go on to edge UNC for the title.
1948
March 6. Playing in the Southern Conference Tournament final on its home floor, Duke falls to national scoring leader N.C. State, 58 - 50. The Blue Devils, in seventh place, had won three games in three days to make the championship contest.
Sept. 3. W. W. "Cap" Card, the father of basketball at Trinity College, dies of a heart attack at the age of 74.
1950-1959: Birth of the Atlantic Coast Conference
1950
March 4. In remission after off-season cancer surgery, coach Gerry Gerard directs a 13-13 Duke team to the Southern Conference Tournament final before falling to eighth-ranked N.C. State.
Nov. 9. Less than a month away from the season opener, Gerard is granted a leave of absence because of his failing health. Athletics director Eddie Cameron announces that Harold Bradley has been hired away from Hartwick College to replace Gerard on the Duke bench.
Dec. 30. Trailing Tulane by 32 points in the first half and by 29 at halftime, Duke stages an NCAA-record comeback to win 74 - 72 at the Dixie Classic in Raleigh.
1951
Jan. 17. Gerry Gerard dies at the age of 47 after a two-year battle with cancer.
Feb. 17. Duke loses its national television debut 85 - 60 at Navy. It is the Blue Devils' third game in four days and fifth in a week, all but one coming on the road.
Feb. 23. With 29 points against North Carolina, Dick Groat becomes the first 1,000-point career scorer in Duke history and breaks the national single-season scoring record of 740 points held by William & Mary's Chet Giermak. The record breaker comes with 12:45 remaining in the second half. Groat will extend the record to 831 points by the end of the year.
March 3. Before 12,250 fans — the largest crowd ever to watch a Southern Conference Tournament game — N.C. State edges Duke to win its fifth straight league title. Groat scores 31 points in the final and finishes with 85 for the tourney to break Sammy Ranzino's event scoring mark of 69 points.
Dec. 1. Duke's season-opening rout of Temple marks the first racially integrated basketball game in Indoor Stadium history, when Temple sophomore Samuel Sylvester becomes the first African American player to appear in an official game at the facility. He starts and scores 5 points.
Dec. 11. Duke makes its first appearance in an Associated Press national college basketball poll, checking in at No. 12 in the opening poll of the season. The AP began conducting the national poll in January 1949.
Dec. 15. Duke reaches the 100-point mark for the first time ever in defeating VMI 102 - 45.
1952
Feb. 29. Duke's single-game scoring and rebounding records are set in the same game when Dick Groat posts 48 points against North Carolina while teammate Bernie Janicki grabs 31 rebounds. Groat's record will stand for over 36 years; Janicki's has yet to be topped.
May 1. Groat, also a varsity baseball star and now a senior, becomes the first Duke athlete to have his basketball jersey number 10 retired when the university honors him at a baseball game with North Carolina, which the Blue Devils win 10 - 2.
1953
Dec. 28 - 30. Led by Rudy D'Emilio, Duke whips Oregon State, Wake Forest, and Navy to win the Dixie Classic for the first and only time in school history. D'Emilio tops the Blue Devils in scoring in all three games, netting 24 points in the final against Navy.
May 8. The Atlantic Coast Conference is founded at Sedgefield Inn near Greensboro, with Duke as one of the seven charter members.
1954
Jan. 2. Duke blasts Wake Forest 86-64 in its first regular-season game in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
March 4-6. With session tickets selling for $9 and $6, the ACC conducts its first post-season tournament at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh. The league grosses $70,252 at the inaugural event, with only the Friday semifinals selling out. Duke defeats Virginia before falling to eventual champ N.C. State in the semis.
1955
March 8. Villanova defeats Duke 74 - 73 in a triple-header at Madison Square Garden in New York in the Blue Devils' first NCAA Tournament appearance. Duke, the ACC tourney runner-up, made the trip because champion N.C. State was on probation.
1957
Feb. 9. Duke faces a No. 1 team (in the ap poll) for the first time ever, and despite a late rally absorbs a 75 - 73 loss at Woollen Gym to undefeated and eventual national champion North Carolina.
1958
Jan. 27. Duke enjoys its first win over a No. 1 opponent, knocking off West Virginia 72 - 68 at Duke Indoor Stadium.
1959
March 23. Coach Harold Bradley resigns after nine years as Duke's head coach to ACCept the coaching position at Texas.
May 5. Former N.C. State player and assistant coach Vic Bubas is introduced as the new head coach at Duke.
May. The University of North Carolina signs New York prep star Art Heyman, but by the end of the month Heyman (at his father's urging) changes his mind and is bound for Duke.
1960-1969: Vic Bubas Raises the Stakes
1960
March 5. Doug Kistler is named most valuable player as Duke defeats Wake Forest 63-59 to win the ACC Tournament championship for the first time. Vic Bubas becomes the first coach to win the event in his initial year in the league.
1961
Feb. 14. ACC commissioner Jim Weaver suspends Duke's Art Heyman and UNC'S Larry Brown and Donnie Walsh for the remainder of the conference season for their roles in a wild fight that marred the end of the schools' game on February 4.
Sept. 5. Bill Bradley, one of the top prep players in the nation, notifies Duke officials that he will be enrolling at Princeton, just days before the start of the fall semester. Bradley had announced at his high school graduation in June that he was coming to Duke.
1963
Feb. 23. Heyman, Duke's first ACC player of the year, saves his best for last by scoring 40 points and grabbing 24 rebounds in his final home game, a victory over North Carolina.
March 2. Duke defeats Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament final to cap off the school's first perfect year in the conference. The Blue Devils went 14-0 during the league's regular season and won their three tournament games by an average margin of 15.7 points.
March 22. After winning the East Regional in College Park, Md., Duke appears in the NCAA Final Four for the first time and falls to Loyola of Chicago in a national semifinal at Louisville. Heyman is named outstanding player of the Final Four even though Duke doesn't make the final game.
April 30. The New York Knicks make Heyman the No. 1 pick of the NBA draft. Heyman becomes the first ACC player to go first in the draft since it began in 1947.
1964
March 21. In Kansas City for its first appearance in the NCAA championship game, Duke loses 98 - 83 to undefeated UCLA as the Bruins begin a run of nine national titles over the next 10 years.
March 30. Duke basketball appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated for the first time, with a black-and-white photograph from the NCAA final of Jeff Mullins and UCLA'S Walt Hazzard.
Oct. 22. Mullins, Duke's first basketball Olympian, scores 14 points to help the United States crush Puerto Rico in the Olympic semifinals at Tokyo and earn a berth in the gold-medal game against the Soviet Union. The Americans then go on to beat the Soviets for the 46th straight victory by a U.S. team in Olympic competition.
1965
April 1. Newspapers across North Carolina report that all-state basketball player C. B. Claiborne, the top-ranked student in the senior class at Langston High School in Danville, Va., will attend Duke on a national academic achievement scholarship and could become the Blue Devils' first African American athlete.
Dec. 14. After defeating top-ranked UCLA on successive nights, Duke moves to the top of the Associated Press national poll for the first time in school history.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Encyclopedia of Duke Basketball by John Roth, Ned Hinshaw. Copyright © 2006 Duke University Press. Excerpted by permission of Duke University Press.
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