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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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CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA – MARCH 16: The Duke Blue Devils pose with the ACC Championship trophy after defeating the Florida State Seminoles 73-63 in the championship game of the 2019 Men’s ACC Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 16, 2019 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA – MARCH 16: The Duke Blue Devils pose with the ACC Championship trophy after defeating the Florida State Seminoles 73-63 in the championship game of the 2019 Men’s ACC Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 16, 2019 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /

Duke Should Win the ACC Once Again

Coming off an ACC Tournament title, the Blue Devils are hoping to do just that, once again in 2019-20 and they shouldn’t have a problem doing it. The best team in the ACC this season other than Duke is Louisville who appears to be the fourth-ranked team in the nation right now.

With Duke’s lone game against Louisville being at Cameron Indoor, the Blue Devils should be able to win that game which gives them the tie-breaker should they finish with the same record. Not only that, but Louisville is one of the teams where I have to see them to believe they’re legit.

Does Louisville look really good going into the season? Yes they do, but coming off what they’ve done in the past few seasons I just can’t see them adapting to the one-and-done era that quickly and doing it well.

Now, that doesn’t mean Louisville won’t be good this year because that isn’t what I’m saying, I simply have to see what they’re capable of before I write them in for ACC Champs.

The other ACC team that has a chance to win the conference is Florida State. The Seminoles lost in the ACC Tournament Championship last season to Duke and in 2019-20 they’ve added Patrick Williams and Balsa Koprivica.

Williams is the 28th ranked recruit by ESPN in the Class of 2019 and Koprivica is 51st which gives Florida State the 19th ranked recruiting class in the nation. 19th is the Seminoles highest-ranked class since they held the 12th ranked class in 2017.

This being said, the Seminoles will be very good especially considering the fact that they have their third and fourth-leading scorers, Trent Forrest and M.J. Walker returning to Tallahassee. This is big for Florida State because both Forrest and Walker are guards while Patrick Williams is a Small Forward and Balsa Koprivica is a center.

Because it looks like Florida State will be such a well-rounded team with a lot of talent, I would almost venture to say that they are going to be a bigger threat to Duke than Louisville will be.

Other than that, I don’t see many other teams in the ACC being much of a threat. UNC looks like they will be carried by Cole Anthony and Armando Bacot and I don’t see the Tar Heels being that great without many guys returning from last year.

Aside from UNC, there is also Virginia who lost just about everyone except for Mamadi Diakite. Because of this, I don’t see the Cavaliers being nearly as good as they have in years past.

With all that being said, the Duke Blue Devils will win the ACC Tournament for the second consecutive season.

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