Duke Basketball: 3 keys to beat Michigan State in 2020 Champions Classic

For the fifth consecutive year, Duke and Michigan State will battle it out on the hardwood, this year it will be in Cameron Indoor Stadium as part of the Champions Classic.

Duke Basketball and Michigan State are traditionally two of the premier programs in College Basketball, and for that reason, they take part in the annual Champions Classic. This year, because of COVID-19, it will be in Cameron Indoor Stadium in front of an empty crowd.

Obviously not what either of these teams is used to, but that is what has happened as a result of this crazy year. With that, Michigan State will make the trip to Durham, North Carolina for the first time since the 2016-17 season when the Blue Devils beat the Spartans 78-69 in the ACC/B1G Challenge.

Duke enters the game with a 1-0 record after having one game postponed against Gardner Webb due to COVID-19 problems with the Bulldogs, while Michigan State enters the game with a 2-0 record after wins over Eastern Michigan and Notre Dame.

Despite the two teams having a combined record of 3-0, they have won those three games by a combined 36, which is a lot, but not nearly as much as it should be considering they played three teams they should’ve beaten, maybe by 36 in each game.

Nonetheless, both teams come into Tuesday’s game without losses, which makes this game that much more intriguing. In addition to that, I would expect this to be a match-up of two top-10 teams after three top-10 teams in Virginia, Villanova, and Kentucky each dropped games in the first week of the season.

That being said and since Michigan State was ranked 13th coming into the season while Duke was ranked ninth, these will likely be two top-10 teams come Tuesday.

So with all that being said, what are the three keys for Duke to win Tuesday night and get their first ranked win of the 2020-21 season?