Duke Gets Ranking Even North Carolina Fans Can't Disagree With

As Duke gets ready for the start of the college basketball season, we'll get a clear indication of what this team is right away. I don't want to go overboard and say that if Duke loses a couple of out-of-conference games, it's not the team that we're hoping for it to be, but at the very least, we should know where it stands against some of the other best teams in America. 

The benefit of Duke playing this type of out-of-conference schedule is that everybody knows that it's going to take care of business against at least some of these teams. 

If Duke can walk away with a couple of big-time out-of-conference wins, at the very least, it should find itself in a very good position to be a top seed in the NCAA Tournament come March. As for how Duke is going to look the remainder of the year, there's a lot of hope that this is going to be the best team in America. 

In regard to whether Duke is the best team in its area, North Carolina basketball is always very strong. Teams like North Carolina are blue bloods, Wake Forest is improving, NC State doesn't look to be a bad team, and some other mid-majors out there aren't half bad, either. 

However, when we talk about college basketball, we talk about Duke. That's especially true when it comes to Duke being the best team in North Carolina. CBS recently named Duke the best program in the state, and it's almost impossible to disagree with.

“Jon Scheyer has soared past the expectation bar since taking over for Mike Krzyzewski in 2022. The only thing left to do is get to Monday night in April. Duke is comfortably, again, a preseason top-five team, while North Carolina starts anew with Michael Malone taking over and, presumably, being a notch or two below their Tobacco Road rivals in 2026-27. 

“I've got NC State slightly ahead of Wake Forest in the Tar Heel State hierarchy, followed by UNC Wilmington,” CBS wrote of the best team in North Carolina.

From top to bottom, all Duke has done throughout a lot of its existence is win at the highest level.

Even if we go back to when NIL wasn't a thing, there was an argument that Duke was an even better program than it already is. 

Unfortunately, for the Blue Devils, they haven't won a national championship under head coach Jon Scheyer, but he's put himself and his team in a position to do so year in and year out. That figures to be no different this season, as Duke has one of the best rosters in America, if not the top one.