Nearly two decades after winning the NCAA Championship as a member of the Blue Devils, former college hoops and NBA star Carlos Boozer has gone back to Duke and finished what he had started.
Departing after his junior year meant that Boozer would be just three classes shy of achieving his degree, and he made it his goal over the pandemic-altered summer to hit the books. His hard work paid off.
Can you imagine taking a college summer course and seeing Carlos Boozer pop up on the Zoom call?
Duke was very likely happy to have him come back, too. After all, he did make two All-ACC Tourney teams, bringing home the tournament MVP award in his then-final year at the school. His career .631 field goal percentage remains not only the best in program history, but in conference history (among qualified scorers), and he's in the top 20 in career win shares (19.0) in the ACC, as well.
Boozer came up big down the stretch of March Madness in 2001, scoring 19 points on 7-of-8 shooting in the Final Four and, in the title game, ripping down 12 rebounds en route to a double-double.
The Duke Men's Basketball Team responded to his graduation on Twitter.
Despite his prolific college career, he fell to the second round of the 2002 NBA Draft and became one of that year's biggest steals. In fact, his 80.3 career NBA win shares are second only to Amar'e Stoudemire (92.5) in the entire draft class despite his second-round value. He finished his NBA career with a near double-double average (16.2 points, 9.5 rebounds per game) and was a two-time All-Star for the Jazz before he spent four strong years in Chicago. He was drafted by Cleveland and finished his career with the Lakers.
He also earned an Olympic gold medal in 2008, playing for Team USA.
Hopefully, his post-graduation celebration didn't involve as many devastating injuries as this one.
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