The Chronicle’s website includes daily coverage of Duke Athletics dating back all the way to 2001. Let’s take a look through the archives to find interesting events and articles that premiered during the week of Aug. 24-Aug. 31 over the last two decades.
2010: Coach K and Team USA prepare for FIBA World Championship
Let’s travel back to this week in the year 2010. At this point it had been 16 years since Team USA won the FIBA World Championship. Led by star players Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant as well as head coach Mike Krzyzewski, Team USA recently won all of their exhibition games and looked to continue its strong form in the rest of the tournament. Coach K had already won the 2010 NCAA championship earlier that year, and looked to use the momentum from his success in college basketball to lift Team USA to once again be the best in the world. Just a few weeks later, the United States beat Turkey in the 2010 FIBA World Championship Final.
2015: Duke women's soccer forces draw with No. 6 Penn State, setting up NCAA Championship rematch later that season
This seemingly-dull regular season game holds more weight looking back at it now, because Duke ended up losing the rematch with Penn State 1-0 in the Women’s Soccer Cup finals that same season, ending the team’s amazing NCAA tournament run. But this week in 2015, earlier that same season, the Blue Devils forced a 0-0 tie after a hard-fought game. Duke was led by goalkeeper E.J. Proctor, who posted a career-high 11 saves. This game was a huge accomplishment for a young Blue Devil squad that ranked No. 21 in the country at the time.
2005: Duke women’s cross country enters season with national title aspirations
All the way back in 2005, the Duke women’s cross-country team looked toward a promising season. The year before, the Blue Devils placed first in the ACC and second in the nation, with the team returning five of the seven runners that ran at the 2004 National Championship meet. Due to this and the depth of the team, head coach Kevin Jermyn believed his squad had the talent to improve on that second-place finish. Despite rolling through the regular season and ACC Championships, the team finished third in the 2005 NCAA Championships.
2019: R.J. Barrett joins fellow Duke men's basketball product Marvin Bagley with shoe deal at Puma
Last year during this week, Duke men’s basketball star R.J. Barrett signed a shoe deal with Puma. Normally, Duke basketball players getting shoe deals are a dime a dozen. In this case, however, Barrett was joining fellow Duke star Marvin Bagley as two of just the 21 current players signed with the company.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.