2017-18 Basketball Schedules Released

ACC schedules were released Thursday including Duke’s.

The non-conference schedule is nothing to get excited about, at least at home.

Duke will welcome in the very well coached Elon Phoenix, Utah Valley, Southern, Furman, South Dakota, St. Francis, once a Catholic power but not so much lately, and Evansville, legendary in D-II ball but not in D-1 so far.

On the road Duke will see tougher competition: after opening with Michigan State in the State Farms Championship Classic, the Devils will play Furman in Cameron as the opener in Nike’s PK80 event. Duke will then play Portland State, then the winner of Butler vs. Texas, before closing the event out with a TBD opponent.

The Devils travel to Indiana to play the Hoosiers under new coach Archie Miller in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge before the traditional February NCAA tuneup with a nonconference opponent in New York ends non-conference play.

This year it’s St. John’s.

ACC-wise Duke has home-and-home games with Pitt, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and of course UNC.

The one-off home games feature Florida State, Virginia, Notre Dame and Louisville while the single road trips will be to BC, NC State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Clemson.

It’s not a bad draw really. Generally speaking, the team that look tougher are coming into Cameron while Duke gets road trips against teams that have either just been bad or which have struggled to keep up with the top tier of the conference.

Tough turnarounds: Duke plays Virginia on January 27th then Notre Dame on the 29th. But February will be really tough.

Duke plays Virginia Tech at home on the 14th, then sees Clemson on the 18th at Clemson. On the 21st, Louisville comes to town, followed by Syracuse on the 24th - then a road trip to Blacksburg two days later.

• This stretch of games to end the season could be a bear for Duke basketball
• Duke men's basketball's 2017-18 conference schedule revealed