Former Duke guard Kyrie Irving was named the NBA's Rookie of the Year this morning.

The No. 1 overall pick in last summer's NBA draft, the Cleveland Cavaliers guard received 117 of 120 possible first-place votes to run away with the award. 

Minnesota's Ricky Rubio and Denver's Kenneth Faried finished a distant second and third, respectively, in the voting.

Faried, San Antonio's Kawhi Leonard and New York's Iman Shumpert (formerly of Georgia Tech) received the three other first-place votes.

Andre Dawkins’ father reiterated this morning to N&O correspondent Jack Daly that Dawkins is still a member of the Duke basketball team.

The elder Andre Dawkins said his son has the option of taking next season off to work through any lingering grief from the death of his sister. Lacey Dawkins was killed in a car accident on Dec. 5, 2009, while driving to a Duke-St. John’s basketball game.

Updated, 1:45 p.m.: Durham court records show that Duke wide receiver Tyree Watkins was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female on Monday, two days before his dismissal.

DURHAM Junior wide receiver Tyree Watkins has been dismissed from Duke’s football team for conduct unbecoming a member of the program, Blue Devils coach David Cutcliffe announced today.

No other details were released, by the university, but Durham County court records indicate that Watkins was charged Monday with misdemeanor assault on a female. Watkins was released on a $500 bond and was scheduled to appear in court on June 18.

A reserve wide receiver from Camden, N.J., Watkins played in 28 games over the past three seasons, totaling 24 career receptions for 152 yards.
 

After a freshman season in which he provided Duke with its most enduring memory of the year, Austin Rivers announced Monday that he will hire an agent and enter the 2012 NBA draft.

“I would like to thank the coaches, my teammates and the fans for helping make this past year at Duke so special,” Rivers said in a release provided by Duke. “Coach K and the rest of the staff really helped me develop and improve in all areas of the game.

“It was a difficult decision to leave Duke, but I am excited about chasing my dream of playing in the NBA.”

Austin Rivers is huddled with his family in Florida this weekend to decide whether he will return to Duke for his sophomore season or declare for the NBA.

CBS Sports’ Jeff Goodman reported that Rivers will sign with an agent and forgo his final three collegiate seasons, but Jeremiah Rivers, Austin’s older brother, said a final decision has not been made.

“We haven’t talked about it yet,” said Jeremiah Rivers, who is with his brother just outside of Orlando, Fla. “He had a really good year, obviously. But as far as my brother coming out, he hasn’t even mentioned it.”

DURHAM – A week ago, Duke was starting what it hoped would be an extended stay in the NCAA tournament.

After Friday’s unexpected loss to No. 15 seed Lehigh, the Blue Devils now find themselves beginning to confront an offseason that will feature its fair share of uncertainty.

Most immediately, Austin Rivers and Mason Plumlee will have to decide whether to leave for the NBA. Both are projected as first-round picks on multiple projection websites, although neither seem likely to be top-10 selections.

Duke’s Ryan Kelly had surgery on his right foot on Tuesday to repair damage suffered when he sprained it in practice before the ACC tournament.

The junior forward will be unable to participate in training for the next 6-8 weeks.

Kelly, who played high school basketball at Ravenscroft, averaged 11.8 points per game this season, hitting 40.8 percent of his 3-pointers. He scored a career-high 23 points in the Blue Devils' win over Wake Forest on Feb. 28.

Duke's Andre Dawkins reacts during the final seconds of play as the Blue Devils fall 75-70 to Lehigh. ROBERT WILLETT - rwillett@newsobserver.com

Updated 11:17 p.m.

GREENSBORO – Duke’s players were the last to see it coming.

All season long, there was a sense that these Blue Devils could do anything in the postseason, from losing their first game to, if the bracket broke right, getting all the way to the Final Four.

The former of those two options came to pass on Friday night.

With C.J. McCollum leading the way with 30 points, the No. 15 seeded Mountain Hawks knocked second-seeded Duke out of the NCAA tournament with a 75-70 win at the Greensboro Coliseum that wasn’t completely as stunning as the seeds may have indicated.

The Blue Devils repeatedly showed their mortality throughout the season, and its offense unraveled in the last week when Ryan Kelly sprained his right foot before the ACC tournament. The junior forward missed his third straight game on Friday.

Even still, the shock of the abrupt ending hit Duke’s players square in the nose.

“I was prepared to win,” said freshman Austin Rivers. “That’s what Duke’s about. This doesn’t happen. We (expletive) lost to a 15 seed.”

As Rivers alluded to, Duke hardly ever loses its first game in the NCAA tournament. Before Friday night, the Blue Devils had won at least one game in every NCAA tournament since 1997 with the exception of the 2007 season.

“For me, my program, you’re on a continuum,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “There are four years that we ended up with a win in my 37 years. It’s not football where you have a bowl game and 35 people end up with a win out of a hundred.

“So when the loss comes and how it’s inflicted, you just take responsibility for it. I think overall my team did a great job this year. But we did not do a really good job this last week and a half, and so that’s upsetting.”

Mason Plumlee made all nine of his field goal attempts, scoring 19 points to lead Duke. Rivers also had 19 points.

After only making 36.3 percent of their shots in the ACC tournament, the Blue Devils’ offense once again struggled against the Mountain Hawks. Duke missed its first nine 3-pointers and only shot 23.1 percent beyond the arc for the game.

“Our offense, which was a real strength of ours the entire season, the last two weeks has not been very good,” Krzyzewski said. “That’s my responsibility.”

Rivers dismissed Krzyzewski’s suggestion it was his fault.

“I don’t know how you prepare for something like this,” he said. “This is the worst day of my life. I don’t know how you look back like, ‘I would have, could have, should have.’ That (expletive) doesn’t mean anything. We just lost.

“Lehigh’s a great team and I tip my hat off to them, but we should have won. They outfought us. They played harder, they wanted it more, they were into it, their bench was into it, their coaches were into it. The only thing we had was our coaches. That was it.

“No one else showed up.”

Even still, the Blue Devils had a chance in the final minutes until McCollum put some distance between the Mountain Hawks and the Blue Devils.

With Lehigh up 56-54, McCollum hit a key 3-pointer with 2:24 left to put the Mountain Hawks up five before John Adams slammed the ball home to give Lehigh a 61-54 lead with 1:52 remaining.

Krzyzewski called timeout, and Seth Curry got a 3-pointer to fall after the ball hit off the front rim and then bounced off the glass before falling through the hoop with 1:31 left.

With the shot clock winding down on Lehigh’s next possession, Tyler Thornton was called for his fifth foul with 1:06 remaining. McCollum made both free throws, and Rivers tried to get to the basket on the other end. His attempt in the lane missed and Gabe Knutson made both free throws on the other end to give Lehigh a 65-57 edge.

The Blue Devils couldn’t overcome that margin in the final seconds, although there were moments it looked like Duke might stage an incredible comeback. After Andre Dawkins hit a 3-pointer from the wing, Rivers was fouled on a 3-point attempt with 28.6 seconds left. He made two of his three free throws to bring the Blue Devils within three, 67-64.

But a Jordan Hamilton dunk on the other end closed the door on the Blue Devils’ comeback hopes.

"I've been part of some amazing teams, and I had some amazing accomplishments," said Miles Plumlee, who saw his Duke career come to a close. "But people remember how you leave, and this isn't how I wanted to leave."

Lehigh will play in its second NCAA Tournament game in three years Friday night when the Mountain Hawks face Duke.

Coach Brett Reed and his players say this time around, the second time for many of the Mountain Hawks, will be different than their first-round lost to Kansas in 2010. That isn’t to say Lehigh doesn’t respect Duke. The Mountain Hawks spoke highly of the Blue Devils. But much like UNC-Asheville tested Syracuse today, Reed expects his Mountain Hawks to play with no fear.

GREENSBORO – Duke is a basketball program known for scheduling tough nonconference games early in the season. The Blue Devils have also played against some of the best offensive players in the country during ACC play.

Now, in its second-round NCAA Tournament game, Duke will face Lehigh, a quality team the Blue Devils could see in future nonconference games. The Mountain Hawks also have guard C.J. McCollum, who is fifth in the nation in scoring at 22 points a game.

Already, McCollum has 2,030 points in his career – and he’s a junior.

“He’s really good and he can score in different ways,” guard Tyler Thornton said of McCollum.  “Even in our conference, we’ve played against guys who can score and dribble.”