Balanced Blue Devils begin to sort things out with exhibition basketball games
Mike Krzyzewski’s 40th Duke basketball team takes the court against another opponent for the first time Saturday night, offering a chance to see how this group’s playing rotation will start shaking out.
As has been the case for the last five years, the freshmen will factor heavily into who plays and how much for the Blue Devils.
Unlike the last few seasons, Krzyzewski said, the newcomers haven’t arrived already clearly better than many of Duke’s returning players.
Over the last two NBA drafts, five Duke freshmen became top-10 picks: Marvin Bagley and Wendell Carter in 2018, and Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett and Cam Reddish last June.
Duke’s had at least one freshman selected among the top 10 picks in every draft since 2014. Only the 2015 draft, where Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow went in the top 10 after winning the NCAA championship, joins the last two seasons with multiple Duke freshmen top-10 picks.
Duke’s current freshman class, featuring Vernon Carey, Matthew Hurt, Cassius Stanley and Wendell Moore, doesn’t have player overwhelmingly projected as a top-10 pick, at least according to mock drafts at this point.
Carey and Hurt have the potential to play their way up there, but they aren’t considered locks.
That may sound like a bad thing. But not to Krzyzewski.
“We don’t have the separation on this team that we’ve had in the past few years,” Krzyzewski said after the team’s Countdown to Craziness scrimmage on Oct. 19. “So that’s not bad, if there’s enough guys who can play, and we have enough guys who can play and they don’t have to play tired. And so, we feel that will help us on the defensive end.”
Blue Devils’ playing rotation in flux
Duke’s playing rotation normally settles into seven or eight players by the time February arrives and the NCAA tournament nears.
During this year’s exhibitions — Saturday night against reigning NCAA Division II champion Northwest Missouri State and Wednesday against Fort Valley State at Cameron Indoor Stadium — expect at least 10 players to see action as the coaching staff begins to figure things out.
Sophomore Tre Jones is Duke’s starting point guard. The 6-10, 255-pound Carey will start in the post and the 6-9, 215-pound Hurt is Duke’s top small forward and projects as the team’s best all-around scoring threat.
Stanley and Moore are in position to claim minutes. But so too are 6-10 senior forward Javin DeLaurier, 6-7 senior small forward Jack White, 6-6 junior guard Alex O’Connell and 6-7 sophomore small forward Joey Baker.
Senior forward Justin Robinson and junior guard Jordan Goldwire appear to be deeper reserves likely to play less than 10 minutes a game in ACC play, but even they could have small roles.
This Blue Devils team is balanced up and down the roster. So seeing them in action in exhibition play will offer an idea of who is pushing to play major minutes when No. 4 Duke opens the season Nov. 5 against No. 3 Kansas in the Champions Classic at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
“The kids really get along, they play hard, they practice hard, and it’s a little more of an old-fashioned team for us and I think it can get better,” Krzyzewski said. “I know it’s going to get better as long as we stay healthy because they work, they listen, and they’re learning, and they’re learning how to play with one another. But a starting five is not a goal. If we get a couple kids separated like Vernon, he did that (in the Countdown to Craziness scrimmage), then that would be cool, but right now, just putting it in on the defense and watching our kids develop and see what happens.”
Northwest Missouri State at Duke
When: 7 p.m., Saturday
Where: Cameron Indoor Stadium, Durham
Watch: ACC Network Extra