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Duke And Villanova To Scrimmage In October

By JD King
ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament - Second Round
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 10: Wendell Moore Jr. #0 of the Duke Blue Devils attempts a shot against Quinn Slazinski #11 of the Louisville Cardinals during the second half of their second round game in the ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum on March 10, 2021 in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

Mike Krzyzewski did not get where he is by not trying new things and he’s going to try something different this year: rather than play D-II champs Northwest Missouri State, as per usual in recent years, Duke has scheduled a (not-so secret) scrimmage against Villanova on October 23rd. More correctly, it’s a closed scrimmage.

This will take place in the Washington, DC area. It won’t surprise us if it takes place at Howard, where former Duke star Kenny Blakeney is coaching but that’s a guess.

This is all about team building. Coach K said this about the scrimmage:

“This is the first year we’re not playing the Division II national champion. We felt like a scrimmage because we really needed to move along. This team hasn’t played. So we are going to have a scrimmage the third weekend of October, a closed scrimmage. And that will help us.”

As per NCAA regulations, you can have the scrimmage but no one can attend and it can’t be publicly discussed.

It’ll be a great way to kickstart things for a young team and to, again, pull players together into a tighter group.

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