NCAA Basketball: 8 takeaways from the first week of the 2018-19 season
By Brian Rauf
2) Duke’s freshmen can be the sport’s next transcendent group
Of course, Duke owned opening night and all of their freshmen were the stars of the Champions Classic. They led a shocking 118-84 steamrolling of No. 2 Kentucky that should see the Blue Devils jump all the way to No. 1 when the next poll comes out.
That freshmen group also dominated the national sports conversation the next day, which is a rarity for college basketball during football season. But that’s the effect of this group.
Zion Williamson was a national star long before he ever put on a Duke uniform because of his dunking prowess in high school – you may have heard that he has 1.8 million Instagram followers if you watched the broadcast because they beat that point to death. Then there’s R.J. Barrett, who is the clear-cut favorite to be the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft and has been a high school star in his own right (he’s already a megastar in his home country of Canada).
Those two players have reach that goes beyond basketball. Now that they’ve teamed up, along with No. 2 overall recruit Cam Reddish and another top-20 recruit in Tre Jones in the starting lineup, this is a group that has the rare ability to dominate both on the court and have influence off of it.
They’ve been compared to the Fab Five for a reason. They may not have the lasting legacy of the long shorts or black socks, but this group of freshmen may have the same cultural impact.