The Duke basketball team has high hopes entering the 2025-26 season but there will be a lot of pressure on a young roster to try and replicate the success of a year ago which was led by Cooper Flagg.
The roster comprised of five freshmen, all of which are highly touted recruits, but Jon Scheyer will also be leaning on a sophomore class that gained valuable experience on the floor with Flagg last season in the team’s run to the Final Four.
However, despite the pure talent, there are still some concerns with how things will look at the beginning of the season for the Blue Devils – especially with the daunting non-conference games that loom at the beginning of the season.
With the official start of fall practice only weeks away we look at some of the biggest concerns entering September for the Duke basketball team.
Lack of buzz surrounding freshmen class
Superstar rookies are no stranger to the Duke basketball program and Cameron Boozer will certainly command in time in the spotlight this season.
Boozer is already dominating the offseason headlines as he prepares for his only season in college. While the buzz surrounding him as not reached the same level as it did for Cooper Flagg last summer, there is an expectation that he will be in contention for the National Player of the Year this season.
Cameron Boozer’s twin brother Cayden Boozer has also generated positive momentum in Durham, according to multiple reports during the summer, but after the brothers things have fizzled out among the Duke freshman.
International prospect Dame Sarr and five-star recruit Nik Khamenia both have high expectations but neither proved to be a major standout during the summer. In fact, there has been more chatter about Sebastian Wilkins, the final player to join Duke’s recruiting class after reclassifying from 2026, than the other two players.
There is still over two months before Duke will play a meaningful game but the freshmen on the roster could have less of an impact than they did last season.
Point guard remains a major question
There haven’t been many years where there have been questions surrounding the point guard position on the Duke basketball team entering the season but this year is an exception.
Currently, it feels like Caleb Foster and Cayden Boozer will command most of the minutes at the position, but each comes with their own set of question marks.
For Boozer, it’s simple. He’s a freshman and inexperienced. Can he adjust to the speed of the college game quick enough to get on the court early in his freshman season?
He showed all the requisite skills to be a great player at the high school level but making the jump to college basketball is no joke, but it just might take some more time for him to get comfortable playing at this level.
And Foster’s questions stem from his extreme inconsistency last season.
Following a promising freshman season that got cut short due to injury, he didn’t take the next step in his development as a sophomore. Foster started the season in the starting lineup before being phased out into a depth piece on the bench until a late season resurgence saw him back in the rotation.
Now he steps into not only an assumed starting point guard role but a leadership role entering his junior season with a freshman playing behind him and not that many other experienced ball handlers on the team.
Duke needs Caleb Foster to be successful in order for the team to have success this season or it could be a freshman orchestrating things on offense.