Duke Basketball: 2022-23 season preview and outlook for Blue Devils
By Joey Loose
Schedule Outlook
Four of Duke’s first five games are easy home date with mid-major foes, but there’s an important game sandwiched in there as well. On November 15th they’ll travel to Indianapolis and face-off with defending champion Kansas as part of the Champions Classic. It’ll be one of the highly anticipated early games on the college basketball schedule this season, and a win over the Jayhawks puts Duke in shape for a 5-0 start to the year.
Next up, the Blue Devils head west, heading to Portland for the Phil Knight Legacy Invitational. They’ll face off with Oregon State in a very winnable first game before taking on either Florida or Xavier. Duke gets a third game, which they certainly hope will be in the title game of this holiday tournament, but that matchup could come against a very strong Gonzaga squad.
There’s only one more cupcake on the nonconference schedule, but it doesn’t come quite yet. After leaving Oregon, the Blue Devils welcome Ohio State to town, playing as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. They’ll then begin ACC play with a home date against Boston College before traveling to New York, facing Iowa in the Jimmy V Classic. That aforementioned cupcake comes a few days later in the form of Maryland Eastern Shore, the last nonconference game.
The rest of the schedule is ACC play, a 20-game onslaught, though the Blue Devils will certainly be one of the top teams in the conference again. They have a tricky February road trip against Miami and Virginia, two squads that should be pretty good this season, and there’s no return game against the Cavaliers this season. Most importantly, the Blue Devils host North Carolina on February 4th and will finish the regular season in Chapel Hill on March 4th, with senior day coming against NC State four days prior.