The Champions Classic, by design, helps kick off the season with some glamorous matchups between four of the top college teams: Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Michigan State.
This year, Duke and Kansas play in the nightcap.
Duke of course will, barring some major surprise, be without Harry Giles, Marques Bolden, Jayson Tatum and Sean Obi.
As we saw against Grand Canyon, this makes Duke’s rotation really tight. In the first half, Duke started Grayson Allen, Matt Jones, Amile Jefferson, Chase Jeter and Luke Kennard.
It’s a pretty good group, but not what Duke might be with what we’ve been calling the four Horsemen of the Duke-opalypse (because when they come back, Duke is likely to kill other teams).