Since loss at Clemson, Duke basketball has been the most dominant team in college basketball over new win streak
The Duke Blue Devils (25-3, 16-1 ACC) suffered the program’s first road and conference loss at Clemson on February 8th 77-71. But since the loss, Duke basketball is on a five-game win streak and has been utterly dominant in all five games.
The numbers that Duke is putting up in some categories is unheard of and this has been one of the biggest displays of dominance this college basketball season.
During the Blue Devils’ five-game win streak, it’s beaten California at home 78-57, Stanford at home 106-70, Virginia on the road 80-62, Illinois at Madison Square Garden 110-67, and Miami on the road 97-60.
Duke has won those five games by an average margin, yes average, of 31 points per game. Only the Cavaliers have come within 20 points. Sheer insanity.
The Blue Devils have also scored over 100 points in two of those games after breaking a 100-point scoring output once through the season before this stretch. One of those contests, when Duke destroyed Illinois, gave the Blue Devils their largest margin of victory in a regular season neutral site game since the 1953-54 season and gave Duke its biggest margin of victory at Madison Square Garden in 73 games played at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
Additionally, Duke has been getting it done on both sides of the floor. The Blue Devils have shot under 50% from the field as a team in just one of the five games over this winning streak and has limited opponents to under 40% shooting from the floor as a team in all five games.
Freshman Kon Knueppel has been blazing hot over most of this streak, averaging 17.3 points a night over his last three games while hitting on eight of his 13 attempts from three-point range over that span, good for a 61.5% clip.
Duke is also now the #1-rated team at KenPom and the only squad in college basketball ranked in the top five nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, where Duke is ranked second, and adjusted defensive efficiency, where Duke is ranked fourth.
It’s been a pretty unbelievable run of winning for the Blue Devils over the club’s last five games, and it seems the loss to Clemson put a fire in the locker room to prove they truly might be the best team in college basketball.
Next up for Duke is a home game against Florida State (16-12, 7-10 ACC) on March 1st (7:00pm ET, ACC Network).
