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NCAA Basketball Duke Blue Devils

Duke Basketball is the Real Deal, But Still Has Room to Improve

By @Bigwoolf5

Jahlil Okafor, Duke Blue Devils

Pat Lovell-USA Today Sports

The Champions Classic, for the past few years, has put four of the best college basketball programs against one another in early-season battles, and has typically led to some really scintillating games.

Duke took on Michigan State on Tuesday night, and while the game was close most of the way, MSU was eventually left behind as they were undermanned. Duke had the top recruiting class in the nation coming into this season with Jahlil Okafor, Tyus Jones, Justise Winslow and Grayson Allen. Okafor was rated the top recruit while Jones was also top five in the entire nation.

Through three games Okafor, Winslow and Jones have pretty much carried the scoring load. Okafor has shot an extremely high percentage from the field, missing only five shots thus far, and he looks like he is every bit as good as he was hyped up to be. Many had wondered coming in if Duke would be able to make a deep tournament run because they are a very young team. While it is yet to be seen whether this team can make a deep run, they have some solid veterans that will help later in the year.

Quinn Cook and Amile Jefferson start alongside the three freshmen and are both tremendous leaders. Cook is a senior and Jefferson is a junior who play significant minutes and have huge roles on the team. There are very few championship teams that don’t have upperclassmen play big roles, so they are huge this season.

Last year’s Duke team had a ton of talent and had a really good season until tournament time. The Blue Devils had Jabari Parker playing center more often than not, even though he is a natural small forward, they relied heavily on scoring from the arc and the defense at times was nonexistent.

This year, the team is much better defensively because of Winslow’s ability to guard any perimeter player, in addition to rim protectors in Okafor, Jefferson and Marshall Plumlee.

This team also doesn’t rely so much on the three like last year’s squad. Last year’s team was upset in the first round of the NCAA tournament because they lived and died by the three, and that shouldn’t happen this year while one of the country’s best post presence in Okafor is occupying the paint. On Tuesday night, they only attempted 14 threes and still scored 81 points.

Having said all of this, Duke still has room for improvement which is kind of scary. As is, the team is one of the best in the country, but they need to improve on their rebounding; on Tuesday night, they were out-rebounded by 10 and allowed 13 offensive rebounds to the Spartans.

The fact that Duke was able to win by double-digits despite being killed on the glass is a pretty good sign for Blue Devil fans. If this team figures out how to take care of the rebounding battle on a consistent basis, they will become one of the favorites to take home the championship in April.

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