NCAA Basketball: 10 teams guaranteed to not win 2022-23 national title

Duke Blue Devils

While the declaration has been made that there are no “great” NCAA Basketball teams, there are still some young rosters that are showing signs of improvement. There’s no better example than the Duke Blue Devils, which has a first-year head coach in Jon Scheyer. considering that Hubert Davis was a minute away from winning the national title at UNC in year 1, that doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that Duke’s No. 1 overall freshmen class is showing signs that they can compete in March. Forward Kyle Filipowski leads the team with 15.9 ppg and 9.4 rpg and is averaging over 20 ppg in the past five games. Dereck Lively, who was ranked No. 1 overall, has been slowly growing offensively and is an elite defensive presence when on the court.

Dariq Whitehead survived an injury scare and should be back soon and has shown the ability to take over games. Tyrese Proctor in another guard to watch as he’s been starting for the past month. And with veterans Ryan Young and Jeremy Roach on the roster, this team could very well have the highest ceiling of teams not named Houston and Alabama.

But while I’m high on the potential, I just don’t see them being able to strong six straight great games in March. They can’t even do that in the ACC, which currently has one team projected to get better than 5 seed (Virginia). And so far, this team hasn’t shown that they can get the job done.

We’ll see if a healthy Whitehead can raise the ceiling and if Lively can continue to get better. I like this team’s defense but unless Filipowski can go for 20+, Duke can lose to a number of teams in the NCAA Tournament.