It was reported in early May that the Duke basketball program will travel to East Lansing to take on the Michigan State Spartans next season at some point in December, but a finalized date has now been reached. The Blue Devils will take on Tom Izzo's Spartans on December 6th, per Jon Rothstein.
The matchup will be a return game from when the 2020 Champion Classic game between Duke and MSU was held at Cameron Indoor Stadium due to COVID. Duke lost the contest 75-69.
This season's game between Duke and Michigan State will be on December 6th in East Lansing, per release.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) June 17, 2025
Return game of when the Champions Classic was played in Durham during COVID.
Duke's date with Michigan State is just one of seven marquee matchups the Blue Devils have on their gauntlet of a non-conference schedule. Before Duke plays MSU, it will have already faced Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, and Florida. Jon Scheyer's club will also take on Texas Tech and Michigan after the contest against the Spartans.
Total mayhem.
The Blue Devils will enter next season with higher expectations than Michigan State, given that Duke is seen as a preseason top ten squad by most networks. Although, this will be the first true road test of the Blue Devils' non-con slate. The team will face Florida at home and Texas, Kansas, and Arkansas on neutral floors.
Duke does have a true road game against Army on November 11th, but this matchup will be its first high-major road game of the season.
A December game against a potential top-three team in the Big 10 could pay dividends for the Blue Devils in terms of boosting the resume heading into March. Duke went through a really tough non-con last season, but it proved to be necessary for the program to definitively earn a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament with how lackluster the ACC was as a whole. Granted, the ACC should be much better in 2025-26, but with potentially the hardest non-con slate in all of college basketball, these prime time matchups only help the Blue Devils in the long run.
With how young of a rotation Duke will have heading into the 2025-26 campaign, taking on several of these veteran squads before conference play heats up will hopefully allow the young guys to mature ahead of schedule. The Blue Devils will open their season against the Longhorns in the Dick Vitale Invitational, so there won't be any time for Duke's rookies to acclimate to the college game before a big test.