Best Ever Duke Tourney Loss

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In 2006, No. 4 seed LSU beat No. 1 seed Duke 62-54 in the Sweet 16. The Tigers, who were led that season by Glen “Big Baby” Davis and Tyrus Thomas, won the game in large part due to the defense of freshman Temple, who held J.J. Redick to just 11 points in his final college game. Temple now plays for the Washington Wizards.

J.J. Redick #4 of the Duke Blue Devils dribbles against Garrett Temple #14 of the LSU Tigers.
Duke's J.J. Redick dribbles against LSU's Garrett Temple during third round game of the NCAA tournament on March 23, 2006.
Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

When we saw that we were a No. 4 seed, we kind of felt a little disrespected because we won the [SEC] outright that year, and Tennessee, who was behind us, they ended up getting a No. 2 seed. But we knew we were going to have a chance to play Duke if we won our first two games. And we knew we wanted to show the nation what type of team we really are.

I knew I was going to have a chance to guard one of the best shooters in the game. Of course I was really excited about that. [J.J. Redick] ran off screens a lot. [Duke forward] Shelden Williams set a lot of screens for him. His whole team set a lot of screens for him. The offense basically was designed to get him the ball. The toughest thing was just to keep up with him and just continue to put a hand in his face when he lets the ball go and hope he misses it. He missed a few of them, so that was good. In the second half, a few times, he tried to tangle us up on purpose, putting his hand in my jersey and also complaining to the refs and throwing the ball against the pad [underneath the basket]. He never said anything to me, but I could tell he was frustrated.

It’s either love or hate. There’s no in-between with Duke. A lot of guys on my team, coming from where we came from, you just don’t relate to guys from the Duke team. So obviously it was a hate relationship with us, whether we were playing against them or not, or just being fans. You have to have confidence in order to be at the top. They definitely had the confidence. It seemed like once you got past that confidence, that year they were beatable just like anybody else. Once we found that out, we knew what we had to do to win the game.

Somebody tweeted about the game and put up a link to it three months ago. I was bored and actually clicked on it and watched the game. At the end of the game, when Tyrus [Thomas] went the full length of the court and dunked it, that was the dagger. His enthusiasm in that game was incredible.

We shook hands, and I remember Coach K just saying, “Great job, young man. Great job,” to me personally. And J.J. and Shelden shook hands with us. I still see J.J. now, playing against each other [in the NBA]. We definitely talk more than people who haven’t played each other before. I wonder if when J.J. was in Orlando, if him and Glen [Davis] talked about that game at all.

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Reddick about to cry.

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