Jon Scheyer is putting together a tremendous schedule for Duke this coming season. On Thursday, we learned that the Blue Devils will see Kansas in November. But it’s so much more than that.
Duke will see Kentucky in the Champions Classic on November 12th, then visit Arizona on the 21st before meeting the Jayhawks on November 26th. Then there will be a tough SEC game in the ACC/SEC Challenge. Think Alabama, Auburn or Tennessee or, possibly, John Calipari’s Arkansas (it would be interesting if a second game with Kentucky was scheduled though). We’ll have to wait on that one.
The Blue Devils will also see Illinois in the traditional game in the Garden. That one will be at some point in February.
That’s a tremendous group of games and an interesting series of opponents too. No one has any idea of how good Kentucky will be yet under Mark Pope, but he certainly has made an impression so far. He was solid at BYU and while he will not recruit like John Calipari did, he may be better at putting together a team. We’ll see. We admire how he has united the fan base though and look forward to seeing what he can do. He is also an analytics-driven guy and it’ll be fun to see where he takes that.
Arizona will present a more European-type offense, perhaps somewhat similar to Kentucky’s under Pope. We’ve all watched KU long enough to have an idea of what Bill Self will bring and he’ll build around the massive Hunter Dickinson. That’s going to be tough.
Our best SEC guess right now would be Tennessee, and that would be another interesting stylistic challenge, given Rick Barnes’ love of physical play. It would also be an interesting rematch from Duke’s first NCAA loss under Jon Scheyer.
Illinois is also a hard-nosed team under Brad Underwood but, unlike Rick Barnes, no one has really called a Brad Underwood team dirty.
Most of the rest of the non-conference schedule is still being arranged, but Maine and George Mason will visit.
Maine is on the schedule basically because Cooper Flagg is a Blue Devil. Vermont taught Duke a valuable lesson, nearly upsetting the Devils in 2013. It seems unlikely that Maine could give Duke that sort of a game, but that’s the point: you never know.
That’s true for Mason too. Tony Skinn, who played for Jim Larranaga on Mason’s 2003 Final Four team, took over last season, leading GMU to a very respectable 20-12 record.
With the transfer portal such a dominant factor now, who knows what we’ll see. But we do know this – it’s going to be fun.
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