March Rewind: Lehigh Stuns No. 2 Duke

2012 Blue Devils upset in first round

What's March without Duke Tournament basketball? With this year's ACC and NCAA Tournaments cancelled, we'll go back in time to look at the top Blue Devils postseason games from each date in March and early April. Special thanks to SportsReference.com for boxscores and the Duke Library for the newspaper archive.

Duke should have known it was in trouble at the pregame press conference. Sure, the 2-seed Blue Devils were playing in Greensboro and facing 15-seed Patriot League champion Lehigh, which seemed like a mismatch.

But the Mountain Hawks came into the Greensboro Coliseum with flinty-eyed determination and no fear.

“We won our conference tournament outright,” CJ McCollum said, “and so we deserve to be here as well.”

“I think our goals go far beyond just participation,” said coach Dr. Brett Reed. “Really our goal is to be a competitor in this tournament.”

Then he added, “I think it's important to be able to recognize and respect the amount of history that Duke has had. Their program is excellent. Their coaching staff is phenomenal. I also think it's important to respect the accomplishments that they have had this year. However, the interesting thing is we're not playing against Christian Laettner. We're not playing against Grant Hill. We're not playing against any of those other players, that's not who they have out there now. So the history becomes less important.”

Sure enough, Lehigh shocked the Blue Devils, winning 75-70 in Greensboro. McCollum made himself a household name by shredding the Duke defense for 30 points and six assists.

Mason Plumlee kept Duke in the game with 19 points and 12 rebounds. Austin Rivers scored 19 on 5-of-14 shooting. Seth Curry shot just 1-of-9 as Duke missed 20 of 26 three-point attempts.