Duke basketball to officially begin season with Champions Classic
The Duke basketball program will begin its season in the Champions Classic against Michigan State.
The start date of the 2020-21 college basketball season will not be officially released until late Wednesday afternoon, but Duke will have a traditional start to its year, to some extent.
Mike Krzyzewski and his Blue Devils have been tipping off their seasons against either the Kansas Jayhawks, Kentucky Wildcats, or Michigan State Spartans in the Champions Classic since 2011, and 2020 will be no different, despite many obstacles to get to this point.
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Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports reported on Tuesday that the Champions Classic will take place in a bubble in Orlando, very similar to what the NBA has been taking part in since late July, and it will be one of eight events to be held in the location.
Duke is slated to face Michigan State for the third time in as many seasons and presumably be the first game of the season with Kentucky and Kansas being the late tipoff in the event.
Other preseason tournaments to be held in Disney are the Jimmy V Classic, Preseason NIT, Orlando Invitational, Myrtle Beach Invitational, Charleston Classic, Wooden Legacy, and Diamond Head Classic.
This report comes one day after the news broke that the 2020 Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament will be held in the Sanford Pentagon in South Dakota.
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No dates have been announced for either tournament as the NCAA is still deliberating on a start date for games and practices.
Rothstein has also reported the idea that the ACC vs. Big Ten Challenge could also take place inside the Orlando bubble, but no further details have been released on that rumor as matchups have not been announced yet for the showdown either.
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Regardless, there will be Duke basketball in the near future as Coach K gets set to embark on his 41st season as the head coach of the Blue Devils, and this will be a year that even the Hall of Famer has yet to experience.