The Blue Devils have seen some of the greatest postseason performances in college basketball history. After all, it’s hard to win five national championships without some real all-time clutch moments and players. Head coach Mike Krzyzewski coached some of the best the sport has ever seen, and names like Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, JJ Redick, and Jason Williams pop to mind as Blue Devils greats.
Are any of those names responsible for the best individual games in NCAA Tournament history, however? Laettner owns almost every career record with 407 total points, but has anyone outpaced the two-time national champ for 40 minutes?
Here are the best single-game marks in program history.
Dozens of Blue Devils have had career-defining postseason moments, from Christian Laettner’s iconic buzzer-beater against Kentucky in the 1992 Elite Eight to Grayson Allen’s freshman announcement in the national championship game against Wisconsin. However, no Duke player has ever matched Mullins’ legendary game against the Wildcats back in 1964.
The Blue Devils legend made 19 of his 28 attempts from the floor and added 12 rebounds for the program-leading night.
I mean, who else would it be? Williams is the Blue Devils’ all-time leading rebounder with 1,262 career boards, and he matched a long-standing program record during his time in Durham. He bullied the No. 16 Jaguars for the entire game and nearly outrebounded their entire starting lineup.
Williams and Buckley are also the only Blue Devils with multiple 15-rebound tournament games. Buckley had 17 against New York University the day his game against St. Joseph’s, a record that stood for 24 hours before he broke it again himself, and Williams pulled down 15 against Mississippi State in 2005.
An upset! I bet you were expecting Bobby Hurley, weren’t you? Well, the best point guard in Duke history has two double-digit assist games in tournament play, but he never matched Snyder’s 12.
Snyder’s career mostly goes unmentioned because Hurley immediately followed him, but his 69 assists in NCAA Tournament play are the fourth-most of any Blue Devil and he ended his Duke career with 575 assists, the fifth-most in program history.
The best defensive player in program history, Battier is the only Duke player with 250 blocks and 250 steals in a Blue Devils jersey. His 42 career blocks in NCAA Tournament play are the most in program history, one more than Shelden Williams, and Battier averaged more than two rejections per game in the tournament.
In a gritty second-round contest with the Jayhawks, Battier had 21 points and eight rebounds on top of his staggering eight blocked shots, and the Blue Devils squeaked out a five-point win.
One of the most talented players in Duke history, Grant Hill is near the top of every career NCAA Tournament leaderboard for the Blue Devils. He has the third-most career points (269), the fourth-most rebounds (134), the second-most assists (86), the fourth-most blocks (23), and the most steals (39) in program history during the tournament. No other Blue Devil is even top five in four of those categories, much less all five.
Hill’s record-setting game came in a losing effort, however, as the No. 6 Golden Bears ended the hopes of a three-peat with an 82-77 second-round win. It was his first NCAA Tournament loss despite it being Hill’s third postseason and 14th tournament game.