Duke Basketball: 10 biggest storylines heading into 2020-21 season
10. The upcoming season can go a lot of ways
As I mentioned in the “star” section of this project, we’re not used to looking at a Duke team without definitively knowing who will be the leading scorer(s) in the preseason. It seems weird to dissect a five-star player ranked in the top-20 overall compared to the top-5 but history shows that there is more of a guarantee in terms of the production to expect from those freshmen.
And even with that production, it doesn’t always translate to wins. Some of the top projected NBA Draft picks in recent years have been on teams who were nowhere near the NCAA Tournament. Could there be players known more for “empty stats” on the roster but doesn’t help the team win? And unless a clear-cut star does break out from the group, there will be a heavy reliance on the group coming together to beat the opponents collectively, which is always a tough ask when the roster is filled with mainly underclassmen.
So will Duke go the way of North Carolina did last season? No. The Tar Heels failure came from a misguided effort on relying on mid-major transfers for big roles in the ACC while having a number of underclassmen suffer injuries that depleted their depth. It would take the Blue Devil coaching staff to completely whiff on this current class to have anywhere near a disaster a campaign North Carolina just had.
However, this upcoming season (operating under the assumption the games go as planned) will be far from a cakewalk for Duke. The players will have their own struggles and issues that could cause them to slip up in the non-conference. And playing on the road in tough environments (or none at all) is difficult to ask for underclassmen. Slip-ups are bound to occur for this team, who could reach double-figure losses if certain guys don’t step up.
Next. Sophomores under pressure to break out in 2020-21. dark
In the end though, this isn’t about how many regular-season victories this team can pile up or who’ll end up in All-ACC teams. It’s about getting ready for the NCAA Tournament and making a run to the Final Four and break this mini-drought they’re on. What matters most for this program is that head coach Mike Krzyzewski is still around, and that makes the team an automatic contender for both the ACC and national championships.