College Sports Wire’s Andy Patton released his 2024-25 preseason men’s basketball power rankings ahead of Monday’s opening schedule, and he listed the Duke Blue Devils as the third-best team in the country.
“Jon Scheyer has an absolutely electric freshman class in Durham, headlined of course by top prospect Cooper Flagg,” Patton wrote. “This team is deep, incredibly talented, and looks like a unit that has played together for a long time already. That’s a dangerous combination.”
Duke certainly looked the part of a national championship contender with its two exhibition performances, beating Lincoln 107-56 before taking down the Arizona State Sun Devils 103-47. Flagg scored 22 points in the first game, and fellow freshman Kon Knueppel averaged 18.0 points while shooting better than 50% from 3-point range.
The Alabama Crimson Tide and Houston Cougars were the only two teams above the Blue Devils in Patton’s rankings with the Gonzaga Bulldogs and Kansas Jayhawks rounding out the top five. The North Carolina Tar Heels, last year’s ACC regular-season champions, start the year in ninth.
Duke gets its season underway against Maine in a Monday night game on ACC Network.
