The road to the Final Four was a chalk-filled one as all four top seeds reached San Antonio for the first time since 2008. That bracket chalk has done little to change the expectation that Duke will win it all. The Blue Devils have been the betting favorites to cut down the nets for a while now, and they have done little to dissuade that notion with an effortless march through the East Region.
The return of a healthy Cooper Flagg elevated Duke to its peak form, and they are KenPom's top team entering the Final Four. While Flagg will draw all the national headlines about the Blue Devils' chances to win it all, he isn't the only reason they can win their first national championship under Jon Scheyer.
Why Duke will win the National Championship
The most impressive aspect of watching Duke play is how explosive they are on the offensive end even when Flagg isn't having a big game. The Blue Devils average over 83 points per game and hit down almost 50 percent of their field goal attempts, numbers that are (admittedly) a bit inflated as a result of beating up on subpar ACC competition from January through Selection Sunday.
Watching a Duke game is a strong display of how to play team basketball as the Blue Devils are unselfish, racking up nearly 22 assists per game, and have excellent movement without the basketball. Perimeter shooting is also a strength. The Blue Devils knock down 37.7 percent of their three-point attempts with Flagg (37.4 percent), Kon Knueppel (40.1 percent), Tyrese Proctor (41.2 percent), Sion James (41.7 percent), and Isaiah Evans (41.6 percent) capable of getting hot at any time.
There is also a significant post presence with the Duke offense as Khaman Malauch is an excellent rim runner, while Maliq Brown does a lot of the dirty work to create open looks for everyone else. The fact that everyone is so adept at understanding their roles and executing them to perfection has allowed Duke to create an offensive juggernaut that is almost impossible to stop.
No one has been able to slow down Duke thus far in the NCAA Tournament as the Blue Devils have racked up at least 85 points in all four of their tournament games. While putting up 93 points on a 16-seed in Mount St. Mary's can be discounted, racking up a combined 274 points against two Big 12 schools (Baylor and Arizona) and an SEC powerhouse (Alabama) shows that their act can withstand the challenges of high-major competition.
Some of Duke's most impressive work this season came in the ACC Tournament, when they were without Flagg for all but a handful of minutes in their quarterfinal game, and still scored over 70 points in wins over Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Louisville.
Those games were critical moments for the Blue Devils, who learned they could still function at an elite level without Flagg. Now that they have him back and playing well, their unstoppable offense has them poised to cut down the nets in the NCAA Tournament.