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Duke Basketball: Realistic expectations for Blue Devils for 2019-20 season

By Matthew Travis

DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - FEBRUARY 02: Cheerleaders lead the Duke Blue Devils onto the court for their game against the St. John's Red Storm at Cameron Indoor Stadium on February 02, 2019 in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - FEBRUARY 02: Cheerleaders lead the Duke Blue Devils onto the court for their game against the St. John's Red Storm at Cameron Indoor Stadium on February 02, 2019 in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /
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WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 31: Tre Jones #3 of the Duke Blue Devils and Nick Ward #44 of the Michigan State Spartans battle for the ball during the first half in the East Regional game of the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Capital One Arena on March 31, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 31: Tre Jones #3 of the Duke Blue Devils and Nick Ward #44 of the Michigan State Spartans battle for the ball during the first half in the East Regional game of the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Capital One Arena on March 31, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /

Duke should win at least 26-28 games

The Blue Devils should without a doubt win between 26 and 28 games before the ACC Tournament gets underway. The Blue Devils play five teams who will likely be ranked to start off the 2019-20 season.

Those teams are Kansas, Louisville, Michigan State, UNC, and Virginia and with Duke playing 31 games in the regular season, I believe 26-28 is a modest number seeing they play six total games against teams who will be ranked in the pre-season.

With 25 of their 31 games being against teams who will likely be unranked, Duke shouldn’t have much of a problem, especially in non-conference play.

So let’s say of their six ranked games, the Blue Devils win only half of them. So three losses at worst right there and the Blue Devils are already at 28-3. The question is, how many of their non-ranked games do they win?

Against non-conference opponents, I would venture to say all of them seeing that Duke’s non-conference schedule is rather weak when you don’t include Michigan State, Kansas and either Georgetown or Texas.

So how many losses does Duke rack up against ACC teams?

During the 2018-19 season, Duke lost four ACC games in the regular season, three of them were against ranked opponents. In 2017-18 they lost five ACC regular-season games, three of them were against unranked teams.

With that in mind, plus the fact that the ACC is arguably the weakest it has been this decade, I don’t see Duke losing more than two games against unranked opponents in the ACC, which is where the 26-28 win mark comes in.

During the 2019-20 season, I don’t see Duke being worse than 26-5, but I also don’t see them being better than 28-3. With only six games against teams who look to be currently ranked, Duke shouldn’t face much of a challenge.

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