Duke and San Diego State face off in a “David vs. Goliath” matchup in the Maui Invitational. What are the keys to watch for in this contest?
The early story of the 2018-19 college basketball season has been the dominance of the Duke Blue Devils, after their 118-84 destruction of the Kentucky Wildcats. It was a complete beatdown over a preseason top-5 team, legitimizing the hype of Zion Williamson, Cam Reddish, and RJ Barrett.
The hype hasn’t been lowered since, with Duke getting wins over both Army and Eastern Michigan. The Blue Devils also surpassed Kansas as the No.1 team in the AP poll and have become the overall favorite to win the 2019 NCAA Basketball championship. But now the team has a new challenge in the Maui Invitational, with several teams looking to give them their first loss of the season.
First up is San Diego State, a team flying under the radar in the Mountain West with all the attention on the No. 6 Nevada Wolf Pack. The Aztecs returns several key pieces on a team that went to the NCAA Tournament a season ago.
Led by Devin Watson, San Diego State handled the team’s first two games against Arkansas Pine-Bluff and Texas Southern. But going from them to Duke is the largest jump in terms of talent possible and will be arguably the most difficult game they’ll face all season.
But could the Aztecs possibly have the pieces to pull off the shocker? The Maui has seen their fair share of upsets before so who knows what might happen? Here are the key storylines to follow for this game just in case.