Duke basketball unveils opening night opponent, finalizes schedule

The Duke basketball non-conference schedule has officially been finalized. 

There have been reports slowly being released about the Duke basketball non-conference schedule this offseason but now the opponents and dates have been officially released.

The Blue Devils announced the final game that needed to be put on its schedule on Tuesday afternoon as Dartmouth will come to Cameron Indoor Stadium to begin the season on November 6.

It begins a daunting opening week for Jon Scheyer’s team, which will host Arizona on November 10 before traveling to Chicago to play Michigan State in the Champions Classic on November 14.

Duke has never played Dartmouth before and it will be the first time that the program plays a school from the Ivy League since 2019.

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The Blue Devils have won 23 straight season openers and hold an all-time record of 91-27 in the debut game of the season.

In fact, Duke will play four programs (Dartmouth, Southern Indiana, Hofstra, and Queens) it has never seen before on the hardwood.

The program also announced that Countdown to Craziness will be held on October 20 and its lone exhibition game of the preseason will be on November 1 against the University of North Carolina at Pembrook.

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Duke previously announced that it will be hosting its own multi-team event this season, The Blue Devil Challenge, in which La Salle, Bucknell, and Southern Indiana will come to Durham to participate in the round robin event.

Other marquee non-conference games feature a trip to Fayetteville, Arkansas to face the Razorbacks in the inaugural ACC vs. SEC Challenge on November 28 and an annual trip to New York City to battle the Baylor Bears inside Madison Square Garden, a game which was previously reported but officially announced on Monday.

The Blue Devils return four major contributors from last season — Jeremy Roach, Tyrese Proctor, Mark Mitchell, and Kyle Filipowski — while also bringing in the consensus No. 2 recruiting class in the country headlined by four 5-star prospects in Caleb Foster, Jared McCain, Sean Stewart, and TJ Power.

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The ACC portion of the schedule has not been released yet but Duke will be both hosting and traveling to North Carolina, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Notre Dame, and Pittsburgh.

Boston College, Clemson, Syracuse and Virginia will only play the Blue Devils inside Cameron Indoor Stadium this season while Duke will be only traveling to Florida State, North Carolina State, Miami (FL), and Virginia Tech.

Jon Scheyer is expected to have the Blue Devils as a preseason Top-3 team in the country and one of the favorites to win both the ACC Tournament and NCAA Tournament.