Duke's point guard-less approach hasn't worked, and this time it cost the Blue Devils a Final Four

There are four players listed as committed to the Duke basketball program for the 2026 recruiting class, the group earning the consensus No. 1 ranking. Let’s see, though, is there a point guard on there? Yep, there at the bottom, 6-2 McDonald’s All-American Deron Rippey Jr. of New Jersey’s Blair Academy.

Because we’ve learned from the past two seasons that a program can gather all the five-star prospects it can and win a whole lot of games that matter, but there isn’t going to be a championship in the Blue Devils’ future until there’s a point guard in their presence.

How much evidence do we need?

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A year ago, Duke blew a 14-point lead in the final 8 minutes against Houston at the Final Four, even though the Devils were the team with current NBA rookie sensations Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel and the Cougars were the team without a first-round talent.

Sunday, the Devils held a 19-point lead in the NCAA East Region final against Connecticut with 3:24 left in the first half, 10-point lead with 6:37 left in the game, a 5-point lead with 1:51 left and a 2-point lead with 6 seconds left and still managed to be eliminated short of the Final Four in a 73-72 loss to UConn.

In both seasons, the Devils got by with a converted shooting guard at the point guard position … until they didn’t.

MORE: Duke's biggest March Madness failings

Caleb Foster was this year’s choice, and perhaps this season would have had a different ending if he’d been able to hold that spot all the way to the finish. He’s a terrific college basketball player, so mentally tough he played a combined 33 minutes in the two East Region games on a foot he broke just three weeks earlier. For the season, he shot 39 percent from long distance and 45 percent from the field. He averaged just 2.8 assists, though. Because he’s not a point guard.

It was same with Sion James a year ago. James is such a capable player he’s appeared in 74 games for the Charlotte Hornets this season. But he’s not a point guard for them. As with Foster and All-American Cameron Boozer this season, Flagg was the true playmaker in the offense while James fulfilled the role of advancing the ball and getting into the star player’s hands to make the key decisions. Late in that Houston game, he committed two turnovers attempting to inbound the ball against fullcourt pressure. He had no assists.

Cayden Boozer is a point guard by trade. Earlier in the year, when it was apparent Duke was following the same game plan as failed in 2025, we suggested turning over the attack to Cayden and allowing him to develop into the team’s definitive quarterback. That didn’t happen; it remained Foster’s job.

Cayden entered the starting lineup upon the occasion of Foster’s injury, but most of the offense still ran through Cameron, wherever he was stationed. And that made sense, given we already had arrived in March when the Foster injury occurred. It’s far too risky to reinvent a team at that stage. The Devils lost only twice in 37 games operating in that fashion.

The Devils haven’t won a championship since 2015, though, using some variation of this approach.

In the dozen seasons since, Duke only four times has had a player average more than 5 assists and eight times has been led in that category by someone who wasn’t a true playmaker, including three from the frontcourt.

Had the Devils been Cayden’s team, might he have known to hold the ball and either A) been fouled inside the final 5 seconds against UConn or B) allowed the clock to run out rather than trying to throw the ball into the frontcourt? It’s impossible to be certain. But these are the sorts of decisions point guards all across the sport routinely make hundreds of times during the season, albeit facing a ton less pressure than exists in the closing seconds of an Elite Eight game.

Instead, when the ball found him at the center of the floor after UConn rallied to make it a 2-point game with 10 seconds left, and as he encountered a double-team from freshman wing Braylon Mullins and point guard Silas Demery, Cayden immediately tried to force the ball over their outstretched arms and saw it deflected by Demery and retrieved beyond midcourt by Mullins. It was Boozer's third turnover of the game; he and Foster combined for six of the team's 13.

ONE OF THE ALL TIME SHOTS IN TOURNAMENT HISTORY pic.twitter.com/RPEQ85CHVT

Thus did Cayden come to be a mere spectator, 20 feet away, as Mullins elevated for a desperate 3-pointer from pretty near midcourt that became the most memorable shot of the 2026 edition of March Madness.

Foster only was a junior this year, and Cayden Boozer a freshman. So Duke could enter the 2026-27 season with two players with some degree of point guard experience and a five-star prospect at the point.

Someone with a knack for playing the sport’s most important position will need to take command, though, or Duke could be looking at another showing of the same movie we’ve seen again and again: dazzling beginning, beautiful buildup through toward the final scenes, lousy ending.