A game that won’t count, but could pay off: Duke-Kansas brings high stakes to Allen Fieldhouse

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Duke coach Jon Scheyer was still in his crib in the family home in Northbrook, Illinois, when the Blue Devils last stepped foot in Allen Fieldhouse. It was a late-February day in 1988, and they were preparing for a regular-season game against Kansas.

In a back-and-forth showdown between storied programs, Duke escaped the Phog with a 74-70 overtime victory.

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The Jayhawks got the last laugh, though: They avenged the defeat six weeks later, down the road in Kansas City, Missouri, when they beat Duke in the Final Four. The team known as “Danny and the Miracles” went on to beat Oklahoma for the championship.

That explains how rare on-campus games are between two of college basketball’s true blue bloods. Preseason second-ranked Duke and No. 17 Kansas have met only 16 times, and that game 38 years ago remains the only game in Lawrence — until Sunday, when the Blue Devils edged the Jayhawks 90-84 in the latest in a wave of high-profile matchups important on the court and off it.

“This is a special thing, you know, the fact that our two programs haven’t played here,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “Nothing about it felt like an exhibition game. You know, the environment, everything here was beyond special. So for us to go on the road, play, you know, a really good team — hungry team — I think we learned a lot.”

Iron sharpens iron with no nicks in the armor

The first benefit of these exhibitions is obvious: The opportunity to play a high-level game with no risk to your record.

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Throughout the 1980s, ’90s and into the early 2000s, top schools played their exhibitions against elite amateur teams made up mostly of former college athletes. They had names like Marathon Oil and Athletes in Action, some sponsored by companies and others operating as a sports ministry or for another such purpose. Even the Harlem Globetrotters occasionally shelved their comedic antics for a night and sent out a highly competitive team to take on college basketball’s…

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Publish date : 2026-10-26 16:03:00

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