The Duke Blue Devils had reason to be confident entering the 2026 men’s NCAA tournament. Duke was the No. 1 overall seed in the field, it had the best player in the country on their side in Cameron Boozer, and it had lost only two games by a combined four points all year. The Blue Devils were a 28.5 point favorite in their tournament opener against No. 16 seed Siena. Top seeds were 158-2 against No. 16 seeds all-time. Should be a breeze, right?
Duke admitted to taking its opponent lightly, and they almost got punked. Siena — coached by Gerry McNamara, a former Duke rival during his iconic playing days at Syracuse — pushed the Blue Devils to the limit and nearly pulled off the biggest NCAA tournament upset ever.
Siena led Duke by 11 points at halftime — the biggest halftime deficit a No. 1 seed has ever faced in March Madness on the men’s side. While Duke would eventually escape with a win, they learned a harsh lesson about expecting a “cakewalk.” That’s how senior center Maliq Brown described his pre-game expectations to CBS during a halftime interview.
Duke won, 71-65. After the game, head coach Jon Scheyer admitted that McNamara out-coached him. Then Boozer echoed the teammates of his teammate Brown.
“We came out here with the mentality that it was going to be handed to us,” Boozer said about Siena. “Obviously that’s not what happened. We got punched in the mouth.”
I’ve been covering March Madness for more than a decade here, and I can’t really recall a team ever admitting they took their opponent lightly. There are a few things that make the NCAA tournament the best event on the sports calendar, and one of them is that there’s no seven game series. It’s single elimination, and as we’ve seen so many times before, anything can happen in one game.
Duke needs Patrick Ngongba to realize its national championship dreams
Duke has a bigger problem than taking its first-round opponent lightly right now: they’re without their second-best player, sophomore center Patrick Ngongba, who is out with a foot injury. Ngongba also missed the ACC tournament, and if he’s not playing right now, the injury must be really bad. Duke is putting open the possibility he could play in their second round game against TCU on Saturday. He’s truly day-to-day.
Ngongba is one of the most underrated players in the country in my eyes, and his impact far exceeds his pedestrian per-game numbers of 10.7 points and six rebounds per game.
The sophomore is a perfect fit next to Boozer, and allows the freshman superstar to be the best version of himself. Why? Well, Boozer struggles defensively and that’s where Ngongba shines. His paint protection is phenomenal because he always knows where to be and it’s hard to move him off his spots with a low center of gravity. Offensively, Ngongba is a super efficient scorer who makes 66.4 percent of his two-pointers. His passing might be his best overall skill, slinging the ball into cutters at a moment’s notice.
Ngongba was seen on a scooter wearing a walking boot entering the arena for the game against Siena. That doesn’t seem like a great sign for his availability this weekend.
I picked Duke to win it all, mostly because the Boozer-Ngongba pairing is so good. If Ngongba can’t go, Duke could have a hard time with a TCU team that is peaking at the right time.
Let Duke’s nail-biter against Siena serve as a lesson to future No. 1 seeds: it’s never a cakewalk regardless of what the seeding or point-spread says. Duke learned that the hard way, and it almost bit them.
