A pretty good season. But nothing earth-shattering.
Or was it? This team was Duke’s first to have five players average double figures in points and it was an unusually balanced group, five players averaging between 10.6 and 13.2 points per game.
It was also the first Duke team to beat the top-ranked team in the AP poll, Jerry West and West Virginia a 72-68 victim.
There’s something else, something more relevant to this season. All five starters-Jim Newcome, Paul Schmidt, Bobby Joe Harris, Bucky Allen and Bob Vernon—were seniors. So was top reserve Hayes Clement.
Records don’t go back much before World War II but this was certainly the only Duke team in ACC history to start five seniors.