Players Who Led Duke in Scoring And Assists in Same Season

A year ago Grayson Allen was a Duke benchwarmer, eighth in minutes played on the squad. He was known, if at all, as an entertaining, high-flying substitute on a freshman-dominated team that won the national championship. Only three times all season did he appear for even 21 minutes in a game.

One of those occasions was the NCAA championship contest against Wisconsin, when he sparked the Blue Devils with 16 points on 5 of 8 shooting. During the 2015 Final Four he scored 25 points overall, raising expectations for better things to come even before three of his classmates jumped to the NBA.

A year later Allen ended the regular season second in the ACC in scoring and fifth in minutes played per game.

Recognition of his prowess resulted in the Floridian finishing fourth in voting for the 2016 all-conference first team, just edged out in the voting by Cat Barber, the NC State junior who led the league in scoring. This was the 19th time in the past 20 years a Blue Devil made the all-ACC first team, the sole exception coming in 2007, a season that ranks as the program’s modern low.

Given how far he’d come since last year, Allen also trailed only Clemson’s Jaron Blossomgame in voting for the ACC’s most improved player of 2016.

At regular season’s end, Allen not only paced the Devils in scoring but in assists, 3-pointers attempted and made, 3-point accuracy, free throws attempted and made, steals, and minutes played.

In fact, through March 5 Allen was one of only nine players since 1976 to pace Duke in scoring and assists in the same year. He’s also one of four Blue Devils, along with Jon Scheyer in 2010, Grant Hill in 1994 and Jim Spanarkel in 1978, to lead a Duke squad in those categories as well as in free throw attempts and steals. The list only goes back 41 seasons because that’s when the school began recording steals.