Stocks are soaring within the Duke basketball program following its season-opening victory.
Another Duke basketball season has officially begun, so that means it is time for another edition of ‘Stock Up, Stock Down’.
The Blue Devils needed to knock off a lot of rust in their 81-71 victory over Coppin State on Saturday afternoon, and the 2020 season already hit Duke in a negative way as its first scheduled game was postponed because of a COVID-19 outbreak within the Gardner-Webb program.
However, before the schedule gets turned up in difficulty, Duke had the chance to finally play another opponent and get the feel for what playing inside Cameron Indoor Stadium would be like in the 2020-21 campaign with no Cameron Crazies or home-court advantage.
The absence of fans clearly showed as it would have been difficult to envision Coppin State mounting its comeback in the second half if there were 9,314 screaming fans inside Cameron.
Despite the lack of spectators, Duke still has a number of things to work on before it faces No. 13 Michigan State in the Champions Classic in Durham on Tuesday evening, most notably protecting the basketball and valuing each possession.
Duke basketball needs to take opening night results seriously
Mike Krzyzewski cannot just toss out the results of Saturday’s victory and chalk up the box score to nerves, rust, or first-game jitters.
Duke had some young players thrive and veteran players struggle, and that needs to be taken into consideration when game-planning for the Spartans, who are coming off of a thrashing of Notre Dame.
The stocks of players will continue to fluctuate all season long, but it was encouraging to see the following players take a step in the right direction and produce for the Blue Devils at such a young point in the season.