Duke is here to save college basketball

INDIANAPOLIS — Zion Williamson couldn’t stop smirking. It started on the post-game podium as Mike Krzyzewski struggled to find something when asked what his team could improve on. It continued in the locker room as Williamson’s teammates mocked him while surrounded by reporters.

Williamson was trying to explain the bond these Duke freshmen have, how one team could potentially contain the first three picks in the NBA draft and still find a way to play a selfless and team-oriented brand of basketball devoid of personal agendas. As he spoke, fellow freshman Tre Jones stood to the side and repeated the same phrase over and over in a funny accent.

“Nothing more. Nothing less.”

Duke had just humiliated Kentucky, 118-84, on the season’s opening night in front of a national audience on ESPN. It was the worst defeat of John Calipari’s career at any level, including his stint coaching a 26-win New Jersey Nets team in the late ‘90s. Williamson attempted to put it all in context, but first he had to stop laughing.

“Bro, stop,” Williamson said to his hecklers mid-interview. “Guys, act professional.”

It was a rare bit of levity for a team that is going to need it as this season marches forward. After a debut like that, the media pressure and the hyperbole is only going to intensify.

Duke has had other super teams before, but this one feels different. No team has ever landed the top three recruits in the country. No team has ever humiliated Kentucky that thoroughly. And no team is going to dominate the news cycle the way this group is poised to do.

In a way, this Duke squad arrives at the perfect time. College basketball hasn’t had much good publicity lately, not with the FBI’s corruption investigation putting a spotlight on the sport’s black market and unearthing a myriad of issues within its structure. The system is so deeply broken that it’s hard to remember why so many people still care about this so deeply. It seems like when we talk about college hoops, the last thing we’re talking about is basketball.

Duke just might change the conversation by doing nothing other than being themselves. When what’s happening on the court is this captivating, everything else can wait.

It’s difficult to believe now, but Duke was actually the underdog in this game.

Kentucky was ranked higher in the polls, entering the game at No. 2 while Duke sat at No. 4. Ten ESPN experts picked the Wildcats to win the national championship only a day earlier, while only two people chose Duke. Vegas had installed UK as a one-point favorite heading into the night.

It made sense. Kentucky was the deeper and more experienced team, mixing a rare blend of proven performers with five-star freshmen talent. The Wildcats had the country’s most sought after transfer in senior Reid Travis. They had seven McDonald’s All-Americans. They had the type of bench Duke could never dream of, stacked with players who could be stars on most other teams in America.

Meanwhile, college basketball fans had heard about Duke’s purported super teams before only to watch them fail spectacularly. The 2017 team with Jayson Tatum and Harry Giles was supposed to run the sport; instead, Duke lost to South Carolina in the round of 32. Last year’s squad with Marvin Bagley III and Wendell Carter Jr. was supposed to overpower anyone in their way, at least until the rest of the world learned they couldn’t defend.

There was a healthy amount of skepticism for Duke at the onset of this season. It was fair to wonder if a team starting four freshmen could handle everything that was going to be thrown their way. It was fair to wonder if Barrett, Williamson, and Reddish would start playing for themselves as they competed for draft position. It was certainly fair to question the bench.

After only one game, the questions have changed completely. Now it’s something like this: Is Duke the most talented college basketball team of the modern era? Have we ever seen anything like this before? And if these freshmen can humiliate a team as deep, talented and experienced as Kentucky, what prayer does anyone else have at beating them?

Duke was always going to be appointment television this season, but a debut like that changed the stakes. You will now be hearing about Duke every time you turn on the TV or the radio. You will talk about them whenever someone brings up college basketball, whether it’s in November or March. There will be debates centered on everything from their chances at going undefeated to if they could beat the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Most people are going to read that and roll their eyes. Duke basketball remains one of the most widely hated teams in sports. No matter how cool this Duke team might be, they will always be uncool just for having Duke across their chest. Nothing is going to change that.

At the same time, you’re going to watch. Maybe you’ll watch to see Williamson’s highlight reel dunks and his equally incredible blocks. Maybe you want to see if Barrett lives up to the hype as the preseason favorite to be the first pick in the NBA draft. More likely, you’ll watch to root against them, because this is Duke, and rooting against Duke is the one thing Americans can agree on.

For college basketball, all of this is a blessing. For once, the story isn’t wiretaps and cash under the table, shoe company politics and the executives making millions off unpaid labor. Instead, it’s the remarkable talent of these freshmen and the idea that they all feed off each other to make themselves better.

We have never seen a team like Duke, not with three stud wings this big, this skilled, this athletic all sharing the court together. Hate on it if you want. Just know you’ll be watching.