Greg Paulus is going home. Well, sort of.
The Niagara men’s basketball coach is taking his team to his alma mater next season. The Purple Eagles are participating in Duke’s multi-team event called “For the Brotherhood,” where they will play the Blue Devils Nov. 21 at Cameron Indoor Stadium and Howard on Nov. 22.
Duke head coach Jon Scheyer was teammates with Paulus for three seasons from 2006-2009, which included a 2007 NCAA tournament game in Buffalo. Howard coach Kenny Blanekeny played for Duke from 1991-1995.
It is the first time Niagara and Duke will play, while it is the second time it will face Howard, with the first coming during the 2009-2010 season.
“There is nothing like playing for Duke University and being a part of the Brotherhood,” Paulus said in a statement. “Grateful to Jon for the opportunity to be a part of the Brotherhood Run. Our program wants to play against NCAA Tournament teams and the top teams in the country. Howard is a NCAA Tournament program and Duke is the best program in college basketball.”
Paulus was a three-year starter and two-time Duke captain, winning three ACC championships and posting a 112-28 record. He still ranks in the top-10 in school history in assists (468), 3-point field goals (210) and 3-point percentage (.398).
The former point guard was hired by Niagara as an associate head coach in 2019, but was promoted to head coach when Patrick Beilein resigned without coaching a game. Since then, Paulus has gone 78-98, leading the Purple Eagles to back-to-back first-round byes in the MAAC tournament for the first time since 2009 and reached the semifinals in 2021 and 2023.
He’s also had stops as an assistant at Navy, Ohio State, Louisville and George Washington. Paulus has faced Duke three times as an assistant, twice at Ohio State and once at Louisville, going 1-2 and losing both games at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
It’s not the first time a former Duke player led a Western New York team to Durham. Buffalo lost 82-59 to the Blue Devils when coached by Bobby Hurley in 2015.
Canisius has played Duke four times, the last in 1993. In Duke’s only game in Western New York, Angola native Christian Laettner led the Blue Devils to a 96-60 win on Dec. 7, 1991 at Memorial Auditorium.
Laettner would go on to win national player of the year and lead Duke to its second consecutive national championship. The game drew 16,279 people, the most ever for a college game game in the building.
St. Bonaventure is the lone Big 4 school with a win over Duke. The Bonnies won 92-88 in the only matchup between the schools on March 27, 1971 at Madison Square Garden in the third-place game of the NIT.
Niagara has gone 1-12 against Power 4 conference opponents in the last decade, including 0-9 under Paulus, although four of those games were decided by 10 points or less. The last Niagara win over a Power 4 opponent came in a 71-70 win over Pittsburgh on Dec. 3, 2018.