Duke Basketball: Is the 2017-18 season a bust without a championship?

For Duke basketball in the 2017-18 season, a national title may be the only acceptable outcome. Is that a reasonable expectation to put on this team?

When it comes to Duke basketball in 2017, what are the likely expectations? The team just added Marvin Bagley III to a great recruiting class. The Blue Devils already had likely one-and-dones in point guard Trevon Duval, wing Gary Trent, and forward Wendell Carter according to NBADraft.net. Can Duke handle four super freshmen and more frontcourt depth than it is used to?

To gauge this Duke team, it would be helpful to look at Duke’s last title team. That was only in 2015, but anyone who has been following Jahlil Okafor in the NBA would swear it has been longer than that. Okafor was the central cog to that team that also included freshmen Tyus Jones and Justise Winslow. Their fourth wheel was current Duke senior Grayson Allen, who came on towards the end of that championship run.

Can a Duke team reliant on four freshmen win the title? The answer is obviously yes. To make matters more interesting, the four freshmen compare rather favorably to their 2015 counterparts. Bagley is just as highly regarded as Okafor was. Duval is coming in better than Jones. Trent compares favorably to freshman Allen.

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The wrench is the different type of player Carter is from what Winslow was. Winslow was another in the series of undersized stretch fours dating back at least as far as Kyle Singler and coming all the way to Jayson Tatum. Carter will be a more traditional four, assuming Coach Mike Krzyzewski does not try to play a different player at the stretch.

That really should not be much to complain about, especially since this Duke team has something the previous title team did not. That would be an elite senior scorer. Allen was a freshman on the championship team, and he is still around for this one. The 2015 team had guard Quinn Cook, but he did not have impact that Allen can potentially have.

The question for this Duke team is not one of talent. It is as talented a team as Duke has fielded in the last decade. That is amazing considering the players that Duke lost off last year’s team. No, the question is whether this group can gel together and whether there are enough shots for everyone on the team.

Next: Does Bagley Give Duke Best Recruiting Class?

With this much talent, there can only be one acceptable outcome, as unreasonable as that may be. Duke must win the national title to declare this season a success. That may seem like a tall order but just look at the recent history. The 2015 squad was just as young and made it happen. This team should be even more talented than that one.

Then Duke can try to do it all again the year after as Tre Jones comes in and potentially Allen, Duval, Bagley, Trent, and Carter all leave for the professional ranks.