Many Besides AP Voters Believe Duke is No. 1 in College Basketball Entering Season

The college basketball season officially starts Monday night, with Duke taking on Army in Durham.

This figures to be a game that Duke is going to easily come away with, but it’s important that the program comes out and takes care of business on both sides of the basketball.

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Entering the season at No. 2 in the AP poll, Jon Scheyer expects his team to be among the best in college basketball, and the fan base feels the same.

There’s absolutely no excuse for Duke not to be one of the best teams in the country this year, and the first couple of weeks of the season are going to give us an opportunity to see whether Duke can be that.

Duke arguably has the best out-of-conference schedule in all of college basketball, taking on Michigan State, Illinois, UConn, Florida, Texas Tech, and others. If this team is as good as it looks to be on paper, we’re going to find out right away.

It’s also possible that, because of that, Duke might slip a bit in the AP poll and other rankings. While I wouldn’t be surprised to see Duke come away with a ton of wins in its out-of-conference schedule, it’s also important to recognize that it could lose some of these games.

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For now, however, On3 and others believe that it has a chance to be the best team in America, which is exactly what it recently predicted. The AP poll might have Duke at No. 2, but On3 has it at No. 1.

“Jon Scheyer returns four players who started ten or more games off last year’s 35-3 group. This is college basketball’s deepest roster, and while they have to replace a first-team AP All-American for the second straight year, the Blue Devils are two-deep across the board. John Blackwell averaged 19 a game at Wisconsin last season, and 17-year-old freshman Joaquim Boumtje-Boumtje is firmly in the conversation for most talented player in college basketball,” On3 wrote.

So much is going to go into the season for Duke, but the reality is this team is just as talented as any in the country on paper.

Does that mean Duke is…

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Publish date : 2026-10-29 14:08:00

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