The consensus around the college basketball world has been that Duke and Florida, in some order, will be the preseason No. 1 and No. 2 teams for next season. Most favor Todd Golden’s Gators thanks to his unbelievable roster retention with key pieces from the 2025 title team, Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon, and Rueben Chinyelu all running it back in Gainesville.
But Duke certainly has a case, too.
Jon Scheyer paired excellent roster retention with the usual excellent recruiting and some key Transfer Portal additions. Duke brings back key players from last season’s team in Patrick Ngongba II, Dame Sarr, Caleb Foster, and Cayden Boozer, added the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class featuring 5-star talents in Cameron Williams, Deron Rippey Jr., Bryson Howard, and Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje, while landing one of the best overall portal players in Wisconsin guard John Blackwell, not to mention the under-the-radar pick-up of Belmont’s Drew Scharnowski…