Originally Posted by
Olympic Fan
This has been discussed numerous times on this board. A quick summary for the newcomers:
When Vic Bubas retired at the end of the 1969 season, Duke had three choices to replace him. Future Hall of Famer Chuck Daly was Bubas' top assistant and he got an interview (No. 2 assistant Hubie Brown didn't). Davidson coach and Duke grad Lefty Driesell wanted the job badly ... he visited Durham on his way to the East Regionals in College Park and saw Bubas, but he couldn't get an interview with Cameron. Instead. AD Eddie Cameron zeroed in on Bucky Waters, a former Bubas assistant who had done a good (but not great) job at West Virginia.
Waters was a recruiting dynamo, who landed a five-man freshman class that proceded to have the first undefeated freshman season in Duke history. The first defection -- Jim Fitzsimmons was not, I think, his fault. Fitz left after one semester because he was homesick for Boston (and, remember, he was playing for freshman coach Jack Schalow, who the kids loved, not Bucky). Fitz transferred to Harvard where he led the Ivy League in scoring.
After his first year at Duke, Bucky did lose sophomore Don Blackman, a Bubas recruit and Duke's second black player who transferred to Rhode Island, and junior Brad Evans, a two-sport prep All-American who elected to play basketball for Bubas, but after one year playing for Bucky, switched to football.
The next year with four talented freshmen joining senior holdovers Randy Denton (the most underrated superstar in Duke history), Dick DeVenzio and Rick Katherman. They had Bucky's best year, going 20-10 and reaching the quarterfinals of the NIT (back when the NIT meant something since only one team per conference could play in the NCAA).
But after that season, sophomore guard Jeff Dawson, who averaged 9.6 ppg for that team, elected to transfer to Illinois (where he later led the Big Ten in scoring. He also lost Sam May, Duke's third black player, who left after his freshman season (he went to Puget Sound and was an okay player). And one game into his third season, Bucky lost the gem of his second recruiting class -- 6-10 Dave Elmer. As a freshman, Elmer had thoroughly outplayed NC State's Tommy Burleson. In the middle of the Duke opener in 1971-72 Bucky tried to send Elmer into the game. He refused, having decided that he was going to transfer and not wanting to lose eligibility. He quit the next day and transferred to Miami of Ohio, where he had a nice career (including leading Miami to a victory over UNC in Chapel Hill).
The record started to decline with all the defections. Duke dropped to 14-12 in Bucky's third season. Midway through the season, junior Richie O'Conner, the team's leading scorer at the time, quit the team. He transferred to Fairfield and led that team to the NIT (playing for Fred Barakat, the future longtime ACC director of officials). After the season, sophomore forward Ron Righter (6.5 ppg) quit and transferred to St. Joe's, where he was a solid player for two seasons.
The bottom fell out in 1972-73. Duke finished 12-14 -- its first losing season since 1939. The recruiting fell off too. Only two members of Bucky's first recruiting class were still on hand as seniors -- Gray Melchionni and Alan Shaw.
After that season, Bucky went to new AD Carl James and asked for an extention on his five-year contract. At the time, Duke was famous for not firing coaches ... although football coach Tom Harp had just been released after his five-year contract expired (Duke insisted that was a firing, he was just not renewed). James refused to make any promises, so in September, Bucky quit (he was NOT fired ... he could have coached his fifth year).
James was in a bind -- where do you find a quality coach in September? Would you even want a guy who would run out on his current team after classes had started?
He came up with a brilliant solution. Kentucky Hall of Fame coach Adolph Rupp had been forcibly retired two years earlier and he wasn't happy about it. He agreed to take the Duke job for a year while James found a long-term coach. But just before that deal could be announced, Rupp's plantation manager died and he decided that he couldn't leave his estate unmanaged. He backed out and James turned to Bucky's top assistant Neill McGeachy.
Neill didn't have much chance -- Duke wert 10-16 in his one season, losing two memorable games to UNC (Bobby Jones' steal in Cameron and the Walter Davis prayer in Carmichael). That spring, James hired Bill Foster to restore Duke's fortunes ... which he did after three tough seasons.
As for Bucky ... he was just too intense for his own good. Not sure you can blame him for Fitzsimmons and maybe not May (neither actually ever played for him), but Evans, Backman, Dawson, O'Conner, Elmer, , Righter ... those are all on him. I'm not sure that with those guys Duke would have been able to compete with the great teams at State (David Thompson and company) or Maryland (Lucas, McMillen, Elmore, etc.), but they would have been an upper echelon ACC team. Without them, it was just about the worst era in Duke basketball history.