The Duke Blue Devils will look to keep rolling on top of a down ACC as they hit the road to take on the Clemson Tigers.
There aren’t many certainties in college basketball this year, but Duke being good is one of the safest bets you can make. The Blue Devils have certainly lived up to the hype thus far in the early season, going 15-1 over their first 16 games, with the one defeat being a rare home non-conference loss to Stephen F. Austin.
Since that game, Duke has ripped off nine straight wins, including a perfect 6-0 start to ACC play. The latest rout came over the weekend when the Blue Devils blew out Wake Forest 90-59 behind a 23 point, five-assist showing from sophomore point guard Tre Jones.
This game could be a potential trap game for Duke, which has a big home matchup looming against Louisville on Saturday to try and assert a clear claim to the ACC’s regular-season title. It would be easy to overlook the Tigers, who are a fringe bubble team at best, but doing so would be at Duke’s own peril.
While most of the Clemson faithful were focused on what the Tigers’ football team was doing to get ready for the National Championship Game over the weekend, the basketball team made some history of their own. The Tigers went to Chapel Hill and beat a very banged-up North Carolina team, marking the first time in 60 tries that the Clemson scored a win at North Carolina.
Roy Williams made headlines for telling reporters he deserved to be fired after that loss, but Clemson did get a big performance from forward Aamir Simms. The 6-8 junior poured in 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds in the Tigers’ win, and he will be the player that Clemson needs to step up in order to stay in this game with the Blue Devils.
The big problem for Clemson is that they don’t score a lot of points, ranking just 278th in the country in points per game. The Tigers average 68.7 a night, which won’t get the job done if Duke is clicking on all cylinders. As long as Duke doesn’t overlook Clemson, they should be able to get the job done.
How to watch Duke at Clemson
- Date: Tuesday, Jan. 14
- Time: 7:00 p.m. ET
- Location: Clemson, SC
- Venue: Littlejohn Coliseum
- TV: ESPN
- Live Stream: WatchESPN
- Odds: Duke -11 (The Action Network)
- Prediction: Duke
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