March Madness is heating up, and if you’re someone who has Duke basketball taking it all in the brackets, you’re not alone, because they’re a favorite throughout this tournament. The No. 1 seed Duke Blue Devils take on the No. 9 TCU Horned Frogs on Saturday, March 21, and if they win, they’ll advance to another round and inch closer to the final.
Nothing is a given during the NCAA tournament, and the numbers show that this game may be closer than expected. Duke has been outscoring their opponents by 18.8 points per game, scoring 82 points per game to rank 51st in college basketball, according to research from the Athletic, while allowing 63.2 per contest to rank third in college basketball, and they have a +657 scoring differential. Duke also scores an average of 9 three-pointers per game, which is 89th in college basketball, while its opponents have 8.1.
Julian King of the Duke Basketball Report says to expect a physical game. “TCU is a very physical team, as you’d expect from a Jamie Dixon team, but it’s not that deep and some of the players are strong, but they’re not that tall,” he notes in a pre-game feature. “However, David Punch, while just 6-7, is 245, and Micah Robinson is 6-6 and 232.”
Just hours before the Duke vs. TCU game, Duke Basketball took to social media to announce that the team has made history this season.
“Duke’s win total over the last two seasons (68) is the second-best two-year stretch in program history,” the school stated on social media, “trailing only the 69 victories posted from the 1997-98 (32) and 1998-99 (37) campaigns.”
They previously said of star Cam Boozer that the player is “the only unanimous selection to the first-team AP All-American team this year” and “the only Division I player in the last 30 seasons to record at least 700 points, 300 rebounds and 100 assists in a single regular season.”
NFL Analysts Make Surprising Projection for an Upset Between Duke and TCU
In a Saturday, March 21 preview piece for CBS Sports, Matt Russell makes the projection that Duke may actually lose, due to missing some star players.
“How much more do we need to see? Duke isn’t the same team without Patrick Ngongba and Caleb Foster,” he notes in the piece. “What team would be able to play at the same super-high standard that the Blue Devils set for themselves, without two crucial starters?”
He adds, “We’ve got four data points of what Duke is without those two, and they’re fundamentally an under-sized, shallow, quality tournament team. The issue is that the Blue Devils are still rated in the betting market like one of the top four teams in the country.”
The feature adds that Duke fell behind 16-seed Siena by double digits on Thursday, March 18, but were able to pull off a 71-65 win. They may not be that lucky this time. Duke is opening as a double-digit favorite against TCU, though, so it would certainly be an upset if they fall. Plenty of brackets would be busted, too.
