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Looks like the pollsters may have Duke pegged too low: even without ace freshman AJ Griffin, Duke reportedly handled Villanova with ease in Saturday’s secret scrimmage, winning handily.
As you may know, teams are allowed to scrimmage but not to publicize the results, so we have to rely on whispers and allegedlys.
But allegedly, young Duke handled a much more experienced - and of course very well coached - Villanova team.
Freshman Paolo Banchero, pegged for greatness, had some nice foreshadowing in that department, scoring 29 points and grabbing 12 boards (allegedly).
Keep in mind that this is not a 40 minute game and winning or losing isn’t really the goal. Even so.
We’ve seen that Duke “won” by anywhere from 13 to 19. Jeff Goodman posted that Banchero and Wendell Moore were especially impressive.
And keep in mind that AJ Griffin, who is generally seen as a lottery pick, is still out with a strained knee.
We’ll add more as we learn it. And we just did - here’s some video.