How Duke’s 5-Foot-8 Point Guard Spencer Hubbard Became A Fan Favorite

Near the Duke bench last Saturday night, coach Jon Scheyer gathered the team’s starters during a break in play. The Blue Devils led Alabama by 18 points with 53.6 seconds remaining in the NCAA tournament’s East Regional final. By then, it was clear Duke would win its 15th consecutive game and advance to the Final Four. Numerous fans throughout the Prudential Center in Newark N.J, though, hoped for something else.

“We want Spencer!,” they chanted. “We want Spencer!”

Alas, Spencer Hubbard, a 5-foot-8 point guard and cult hero among the Duke faithful, never got into the game. Still, Hubbard likely didn’t mind, as the humble and grateful fifth-year senior was simply happy his unlikely career would continue. On Saturday, Hubbard and his teammates play Houston in the Final Four in San Antonio, with a trip to Monday’s national title game on the line.

Hubbard has fulfilled a dream by just being on the team. His mother, Beth, grew up near Duke’s campus and graduated from the school, as did other relatives. Hubbard has been a Duke fan since he was a toddler. He recalls Scheyer’s time as a starting guard on the 2010 NCAA tournament championship team, which occurred a few weeks before Hubbard’s ninth birthday.

“I always loved just the Duke Blue and the aesthetic,” Hubbard said.

Hubbard was born and raised in Los Angeles and introduced to basketball early on. Michael Hubbard, his father, began coaching him on a local YMCA team when he was four years old. Hubbard played Pop Warner football for a couple of years, but he stopped to concentrate on basketball. At 9, he joined a travel team that competed in national tournaments and featured teammates such as Johnny Juzang, who is now a guard with the NBA’s Utah Jazz. He also worked with trainer Mark Peters, a 5-foot-10 former point guard at the University of California-Riverside who showed Hubbard how to excel despite usually being the shortest player on the court. Hubbard was hooked.

“He was taking me into the gym,” Michael Hubbard said. “We’d go somewhere, and he’s like, ‘I want to go work out.’ And this is an 11 year old kid, 12 year old kid. We’re going in whatever gym we can find, and he’s doing skill work and shooting baskets.”

Said Beth Hubbard: “Every spring break, wherever we would go, we had to make sure there was a gym close by. We were taking his basketball.”

Hubbard Excels In High School

At Harvard-Westlake High School, Hubbard played on the varsity all four years and started as a sophomore, junior and senior for a team that competed in California’s Open Division, the highest level in the state. His teammates early on included Juzang and Cassius Stanley, who spent a year at Duke and is now in the NBA G League. As a senior, Hubbard averaged 13 points and 4 assists per game and played alongside several players who competed in college, including Mason Hooks (Princeton), Trumann Gettings (Tufts), Brase Dottin (Cal Poly), Adam Hinton (Cornell) and Cam Thrower (Penn).

“He was just an incredibly gifted young man as far as reading the game, passing, getting in guys defensively, becoming an outright pest,” said David Rebibo, Hubbard’s coach at Harvard-Westlake and with the Team Why Not grassroots program. “He was the head of the snake for us for a long time.”

Rebibo recalled a March 2020 semifinal regional playoff game against Sierra Canyon, a team featuring Amari Bailey, who is now in the G League; Brandon Boston, who plays for the New Orleans Pelicans; Zaire Williams, who plays for the Brooklyn Nets; and Bronny James, the son of LeBron James who has split time between the G League and NBA this season. LeBron James was in the crowd that night at Pepperdine University, as was Drake and Maverick Carter, James’s longtime friend and business partner. Sierra Canyon won by 10 points, but Hubbard wasn’t intimidated.

“He kept us in the game and was awesome,” Rebibo said. “He’s just a truly special kid with an incredible gift of bringing people in and being an incredible leader, but also an incredible competitor who was going to give you everything he had every time he stepped on the court.”

Several lower level Division 1 colleges and top Division III programs showed interest in Hubbard, but he decided to do all he could to get into Duke. He had attended former coach Mike Krzyzewski’s summer camp as a child and wanted to join the team, although he knew the Blue Devils wouldn’t recruit him. He understood the Blue Devils only signed the best high school players in the nation. As such, Hubbard focused on his academics in high school to have a chance to get accepted to Duke, a highly selective college.

“Doing well in school was my main priority,” Hubbard said. “My family and my coaches always made that a staple for me, so I made that a priority for myself.”

Said Beth Hubbard: “He’s known himself better than I think most kids do at their age, and that started early on. He just knew what was best for him…He could have gotten a lot more minutes at other places, but he had a dream to play at one of the best schools in the country and play for Coach K.”

Hubbard Achieves Dream At Duke

As a freshman during the 2020-21 season, Hubbard was part of Duke’s practice squad. The next season, he made the team as a walk-on, appearing in his first game on Nov. 19, 2021, against Lafayette and scoring his first point a month later against Elon. He was a walk-on again the next season before earning a scholarship in September 2023. Duke posted a video of Scheyer breaking the news to the team, praising Hubbard’s work ethic, calling him “as competitive as anybody” and noting “he pisses you guys off more going against him in practice.” His teammates then mobbed Hubbard, hugged him and shouted “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“It was super emotional,” Hubbard said. “I had no idea. And afterwards just celebrating with my teammates and having those conversations with my parents and family who’ve been along this journey with me, it just felt like the culmination of a lot of hard work and not something I was expecting. It made it even that much more emotional.”

Hubbard graduated last fall and had an opportunity to transfer to smaller Division 1 schools and earn more playing time, but he decided to stick around at Duke. His father recalled a recent conversation where Hubbard mentioned he had set goals before enrolling at Duke, including earning a scholarship and winning a national title.

“He said, ‘If I hadn’t come back, I couldn’t have got to the place where we are now,’” Michael Hubbard said.

While Hubbard has long been a fan favorite, this year he’s received much more attention even he though he’s only scored a total of 13 points across 25 minutes in 12 games. During his career, Hubbard has appeared in 28 games (all Duke victories) and scored 20 points in 65 minutes.

When Hubbard made a 3-pointer in a blowout victory over Illinois at Madison Square Garden in February, the crowd erupted while cameras showed his more heralded teammates such as freshmen phenoms Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel and Khalan Maluach celebrating on the bench. And in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the crowd cheered loudly when Hubbard made a layup late in the game against Mount St. Mary’s.

“It’s awesome,” Scheyer said after that game. “Spencer’s given us five years. The rest of us are jealous. We wish you guys cheered for us as loud as Spencer gets an applause. Besides that, I think it’s an awesome thing.”

Hubbard’s parents are in awe of their son’s fame, especially because he is modest and prefers blending in and just being part of the team. At games, fans sometimes approach him and ask for photos.

“He doesn’t want anybody to give him any fan fare,” Beth Hubbard said. “We’ve chuckled about it a lot. That’s just not what he’s there for.”

Said Michael Hubbard: “He’s gracious about it, but he’s not trying to (get attention). That’s why the fans love him so much and they’re chanting. It’s kind of funny because he didn’t ask for it.”

Hubbard Aims For Duke’s First National Title Since 2015

Besides his playing duties in practices and suiting up for games, Hubbard also works with teammates and gives some pointers. After Duke’s victory over Alabama last Saturday in the Elite 8, Duke freshman guard Isaiah Evans approached Hubbard’s parents.

“He said, ‘I wouldn’t know defense the way I do if it hadn’t been for Spencer,’” Beth Hubbard said.

Hubbard, in typical fashion, downplayed his contributions.

“I try to help when I can and just when it’s appropriate, giving advice and support,” he said. Hubbard added he wants to be “someone that guys can lean on for on the court support and emotional support, and just a guy who’s in their corner.”

Hubbard hasn’t decided where he will be working when the school year ends, but he has an interest in sports management. He interned for two summers with longtime NBA agent Jason Glushon, whose clients include Boston Celtics stars Jaylen Brown and Jrue Holiday and brothers Mo and Franz Wagner of the Orlando Magic. Hubbard also has an interest in finance and helping athletes make smart financial decisions.

This weekend, though, is all about helping the Blue Devils prepare for the Final Four. Hubbard was on Duke’s team that made it to the Final Four in 2022, losing to rival North Carolina in Krzyzewski’s final game. He is hoping for a better ending in San Antonio, with Duke aiming for its sixth national title and first since 2015. Back then, Hubbard was an eighth grader with dreams of playing at Duke. He is now a beloved athlete at a school that has long meant so much to him.

“That’s not only a testament to him and his hard work, but it also lends hope to those who have that dream and aspire to do the things that he’s done,” Rebibo said. “I think from that standpoint, he is and should be a fan favorite, but he should also be somebody that people look up to, regardless of your size, that you if you work hard enough and you commit to it, you can do it.”