Duke’s best four players did not show up against Kansas.

The anti-Duke crowd can take pleasure in the top-ranked Blue Devils’ losing their first game of the season Tuesday night in a made-for-TV doubleheader at Madison Square Garden. But that is not the Duke team people will see when all the chips are down in March.

The hub of the best recruiting class in the nation, perhaps three members of the best freshman class ever in college basketball, did not play for the Dukies. Harry Giles (knee), Jason Tatum (foot) and Marques Bolden (lower leg) represent nearly 20 feet of adolescent greatness, watching from the bench in street clothes.

Their best player who was on the court, junior Grayson Allen, played like he should have been seated alongside the super three. Allen went 4 of 15 from the floor as Duke squandered an early lead to the Jayhawks, fell behind by 10 points late in the game and made a typical run down the stretch to tie the score. Frank Mason III, one of few seniors on the court, drilled a jumper with 1.8 seconds left to keep seventh-ranked KU from opening the season 0-2.

The big question, with the deepest roster Coach K has ever had at Duke, was why didn’t more Blue Devils get in the game?  With a team that still had 13 players dressed out, Krzyzewski used only six guys for all but one minute. It was like he was holding the three spots for the three studs and making it clear to the national TV audience that their minutes would be there whenever they returned.

It’s a careful chemistry for Duke, which for the first time in K’s career may have too many players. Four returning starters, plus seven recruited freshmen, are on a single roster. Even when the three potential one-and-dones come back, Krzyzewski will have too many players for his customary seven-man rotation. So don’t let anyone get too comfortable too soon? Duke’s biggest problem was in the first game, where No. 2 Kentucky ran away from Michigan State.

Most basketball analysts believe those two teams in dark blue, dominated by kids here today and gone tomorrow, will be playing a certain Monday night in April when all is said and done.

 

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