1906   Wilbur Wade Card (right), Trinity College's Athletic Director and a member of the Class of 1900, introduced the game to Trinity.  The January 30 issue of The Trinity Chronicle headlined the new sport on its front page.  Trinity's first game ended in a loss to Wake Forest, 24-10. The game was played in the Angier B. Duke Gymnasium, later known as The Ark.

Article: "March Madness: the Early History of Duke Basketball"

In 1912 Card stepped down as basketball coach. From 1913 until 1929, the basketball program had ten different head coaches.

 1920  The Trinity team (left) won its first title, the state championship, by beating the North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering (now NC State) 25 to 24. Earlier in the season they had beaten the University of North Carolina 19-18 in the first match-up between the two schools.

1923   Alumni Memorial Gymnasium opened on what is now Duke's East Campus, replacing The Ark as the site for games. 

1930   Bill Werber, Class of '30 (right), became Duke's first All-American in basketball. The Gothic-style West Campus opened, with a new gym, later to be named for Coach Card.

1940  The Indoor Stadium was opened. Initially it was referred to as an "Addition" to the  gymnasium.  Part of its cost was paid for with the proceeds from the Duke football team's appearance in the 1938 Rose Bowl.  It 1972 it would be named for Eddie Cameron, head coach from 1929 to 1942.

1951  Dick Groat (right) became the first Duke player to be named National Player of the Year.

1954   Duke left the Southern Conference to become a charter member of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

1955   Coach Harold Bradley's team made Duke's first appearance in the NCAA tournament, falling to Villanova in the East Regional.

Basketball alumni include some well-known coaches, such as Charles "Lefty" Driesell, '54.

1963   The Duke team under Vic Bubas made its first  appearance in the Final Four, losing 74-71 to Loyola in the semifinal.

1964   Bubas' next team reached the national title game, losing to the Bruins of UCLA, who claimed 10 titles in the next 12 years.

1974   The basketball program got victory number 1000, making Duke the eighth school  in NCAA history to reach that figure.

1978   In a stunning turnaround,  Coach Bill Foster's Blue Devils, who had gone 2-10 in the ACC the previous year, won the conference tournament and went on to the NCAA championship game, where they fell to Kentucky. At left, Mike Giminski ('80) and Jim Spanarkel ('79) run the floor.

1981   Mike Krzyzewski became head coach.

1988-1992  Coach K's teams made the Final Four in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992. For a while, some commentators took to calling it "The Duke Invitational." 
 

1991   NCAA Championship 1

1992   NCAA Championship 2

2001   NCAA Championship 3. Coach K was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

2003   Duke won the ACC tournament for an unprecedented fifth straight year(1999-2003).