Duke is done. Passed over by NCAA, Blue Devils basketball won’t play in NIT.
For the first time in 26 years, an NCAA tournament will be played without the Duke Blue Devils.
The NCAA selection committee deemed Duke’s season not good enough after the Blue Devils went 13-11 in the pandemic-altered season.
Duke last missed the NCAA tournament in 1995, the season coach Mike Krzyzewski was sidelined from early January on due to mental and physical exhaustion following back surgery. The Blue Devils went 2-14 in ACC play and 13-18 overall.
Since then, Duke has had winning records every season and played in every NCAA tournament. The Blue Devils were 25-6 last season when the pandemic caused the NCAA tournament’s cancellation.
The Blue Devils also chose not to be considered for the 16-team National Invitation Tournament, which is being held entirely in Frisco and Denton, Texas, this month.
Duke went 11-11 in the regular season, losing three games in a row entering the ACC tournament. Seeded No. 10, the Blue Devils blasted No. 15 seed Boston College, 86-51, on Tuesday before knocking off No. 7 seed Louisville, 70-56, on Wednesday.
After that game, one of Duke’s walk-on players tested positive for COVID-19. Once back on campus in Durham, the player was tested again by Duke staff. His positive test result, received Thursday morning, led to the Blue Devils pulling out of the ACC tournament. Their quarterfinal game with Florida State was canceled and the Seminoles advanced to Friday’s semifinals.
With the players and coaches in quarantine, Duke athletics director Kevin White initially declared the Blue Devils season over with their abrupt ACC tournament departure. But medical officials declared Duke’s players, who have all tested negative daily for the virus since last fall, could exit their quarantine after seven days if they continued to test negative and show no symptoms.
That opened the door for Duke to play in the NCAA tournament if selected.
How Duke finished in the ratings
The Blue Devils were also available to be one of four standby teams ready to enter the bracket if a team had to pull out of the NCAA tournament prior to Tuesday at 6 p.m.
But the committee didn’t have the Blue Devils rated high enough for even that role. Louisville, Colorado State, Saint Louis and Mississippi are the designated standby teams since the committee deemed them the first four teams out of the field.
Duke finished at No. 49 in the NET ratings the committee uses to analyze teams. The Blue Devils are No. 33 in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, the highest-rated team not to make the NCAA tournament.
The last four at-large teams to make the field -- Drake, Wichita State, UCLA and Michigan State -- take part in First Four games on Tuesday. Drake (23-4) entered Sunday at No. 45 in the NET, followed by UCLA (17-9) at No. 46, Michigan State (15-12) at No. 70 and Wichita State (14-5) at No. 72.
In addition to beating a standby team in Louisville, the Blue Devils beat four teams that made the NCAA tournament: Clemson, Georgia Tech, Virginia and Syracuse. But they also lost to non-tournament teams Pittsburgh, Miami and Notre Dame, who all finished the season with losing records.
Texas lifts state mask mandate
Duke joined a handful of teams from around the country who decided not to pursue entry into this season’s NIT. That tournament, which in non-pandemic times includes 32 teams with games played on campus sites until the semifinals and finals at New York’s Madison Square Garden, is being played in suburban Dallas instead.
Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued executive orders ending the state’s mask mandate and declared all businesses open without restrictions.
Meanwhile, Duke’s administration instituted a campus-wide stay-in-place order for all undergraduate students Saturday night that lasts for one week. That move was in response to a surge in COVID-19 cases that saw 180 students test positive for COVID-19 in one week and another 200 entering quarantine.
Duke’s athletic teams are granted exemptions from the stay-in-place order to travel for games. But the basketball team’s season is now over.
This story was originally published March 14, 2021 at 8:02 PM with the headline "Duke is done. Passed over by NCAA, Blue Devils basketball won’t play in NIT.."