Duke Blue Devils: 23-8, 11-7 in the ACC
Head coach: Mike Krzyzewski, 37th season
Players to watch: Luke Kennard (20.1 PPG, 45.0 3PT%); Jayson Tatum (16.0 PPG, 7.3 RPG); Grayson Allen (14.5 PPG)
Season recap: The Blue Devils entered the 2016-17 season with a host of high expectations. Duke boasted four five-star recruits, junior Grayson Allen was a favorite for National Player of the Year and the squad was the consensus No. 1 team in the nation. Given the preseason hype, questions remain about whether the Blue Devils under-performed this season or if those expectations were unrealistic.
Injuries plagued Duke throughout the season, forcing the likes of Allen, Jayson Tatum, Harry Giles, Marques Bolden Amile Jefferson to see limited action during various stretches of the season. Many thought the Blue Devils would boast a deep frontcourt, but Giles, Bolden and Chase Jeter hardly made an impact in ACC play.
Instead, Duke relied on its perimeter players, with first-team All-ACC guard Luke Kennard, Allen and Tatum carrying the offense. That inconsistency up front hurt the Blue Devils, who bookended a seven-game winning streak featuring three ranked wins against North Carolina, Notre Dame and Virginia by losing three of four in January and to finish the season. Duke went just 3-6 in league road games, and finds itself playing on Wednesday in the ACC tournament as the No. 5 seed for the second straight year.
But if Allen can give the Blue Devils some clutch long-range shooting, Duke has shown it has the firepower to hang with the league’s top teams even with a thin rotation.
How they make a run: Allen looks healthy again despite battling a lingering ankle injury and gets hot from the perimeter, giving the Blue Devils another potent scorer for teams to worry about. Duke spreads the wealth offensively and get enough stops at the end of tight games to advance to the ACC tournament title game for the first time since 2014.
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