Luke DeCock: Why Duke reserve Stanley Borden is merely an interested observer during Final Four run

Luke DeCock:, The News & Observer on Apr 2, 2025

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RALEIGH, N.C. — Stanley Borden was out with his Duke teammates for warm-ups Saturday night, in full uniform, ready to play. Then, he threw on a gray zip-up hoodie and took a seat in the front row of the stands behind the bench and watched Duke win, just like everyone else behind him.

The 7-footer warmed up before both halves and cut down the nets after the win over Alabama along with the other players, but when difficult choices had to be made about who sits on the bench, Borden was the only Duke player exiled to the seats, as he has been for all four games of the NCAA Tournament on Duke’s path to San Antonio.

“When it comes to sitting in the back? It sucks, to be frank,” Borden said. “It’s extremely unfortunate. For me, something I’ve learned throughout these past four years is to control what I can control and to try not to be as upset about the things that I can’t. One can’t help their emotions.”

The NCAA limits teams to 20 bench seats during the tournament, which is fewer than most teams have at their home arenas — typically somewhere in the 20s depending on venue and tradition. Even for a team dressing 18 players with four or five assistant coaches, that leaves plenty of available seats for others. (The starting five doesn’t count in the total.)

But not in March.

For teams that have a lot of walk-ons, or a lot of auxiliary staff, or a lot of managers, all of whom have been a part of the bench all season long, the NCAA demands a winnowing, with a maximum of 15 players in uniform and nine cordoned-off seats directly behind the bench for support staff who have access to the floor before the game and during halftime. That’s where extra equipment managers, strength coaches, nutritionists, analysts and managers often end up.

Along with Borden, who has played seven minutes this season.

“If I could fight it, I would. But I can’t,” Borden said. “So we just put our head down and do the work. And now we’re in the Final Four.”

The Duke senior — New York born, raised in Istanbul, a member of the Portuguese national program — has been through this before. He was relegated to the stands during the NCAA Tournament last year, but alongside teammates Jaden Schutt and Christian Reeves. Which, for postseason games they were unlikely to play, isn’t all that much different from being at the end of the bench. But being the only player exiled, especially one that stands 7 feet tall, makes him not only isolated but rather conspicuous.

Which leaves Borden, so much a part of Duke’s bench and team during the season — helping injured teammates off the court, mopping up the occasional blowout, calling out plays, providing moral support — as not much more than a spectator at the most important time of the year, not that he doesn’t try to have that same effect. He’s still in close proximity to the bench, and like the managers sitting alongside him, can still be heard, even while separated from his teammates.

“It’s one of those things, you want to impact the game in whatever ways you can and help your team win,” Borden said. “It’s been an interesting exercise in selflessness for me.”

Other teams have been through this before. In the days when North Carolina’s walk-ons went viral — Blue Steel! — they would rotate one of their number through the one or two available seats on the bench during the NCAA Tournament. When North Carolina won the NCAA title in 2009, Jack Wooten wore his game uniform under his clothes so he could properly celebrate on the floor if the Tar Heels won — and ended up being the first player up the ladder with the scissors.

Borden is fully in uniform, so that’s not an issue for him. And he’s already cut down two nets this season, one in Charlotte, one in Newark. But he’s also been the epitome of an interested observer, part of the team in every respect except for the two-and-a-half hours that matter.

“There’s so much more behind it,” Borden said. “The journey, that’s what you try to enjoy. That’s what you have to focus on.”

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