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The Duke Blue Devils are set to face the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Check out our college basketball odds series, which includes our Duke Notre Dame prediction, odds, and pick.
Duke is coming off a road win at Louisville on Saturday afternoon. The star of that game was not Paolo Banchero, who is a projected top-five pick in the 2022 NBA draft, but A.J. Griffin, who was the only Duke player to make 3-pointers efficiently in that game. Griffin made all five triples he attempted, giving Duke and Mike Krzyzewski 22 huge points in a game the Blue Devils won by nine, 74-65. If Griffin can more consistently help Banchero, that would space the court and make it easier for Duke to operate its halfcourt sets.
Duke doesn’t look like an elite team right now. The Blue Devils are ranked in the top 10, but they go through long stretches of play in which they don’t make precise passes and don’t win 50-50 balls. There are 10 to 15 minutes per game in which this team looks like a juggernaut, but the other 25 to 30 minutes are pedestrian. Duke lost at home to Miami and trails the Hurricanes in the ACC standings. Duke was taken to the wire at home by Clemson last week. This team lost at Florida State, and the Seminoles aren’t that good. FSU followed its Duke win by losing to both Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech, the latter at home. If you are considering a Duke Notre Dame prediction and are studying the college basketball odds for this game, keep those points in mind.
Notre Dame entered this season with coach Mike Brey — a former Coach K assistant — on the hot seat. The Irish nearly made the Final Four in 2015 but were denied by Kentucky and Karl-Anthony Towns in a classic game. Brey has done really well in two decades at Notre Dame, but the past several seasons had been atrocious. The Irish needed to thrive this season and make a run at the NCAA Tournament for Brey to feel safe. Notre Dame has done that, and if it can win this game against Duke — following a Saturday win over Tony Bennett and Virginia — the Irish would likely be on the good side of the NCAA Tournament bubble. They have work to do, but they’re squarely in the mix for March Madness. Ponder that point when thinking about your Duke Notre Dame pick.
Courtesy of FanDuel, here are the Duke-Notre Dame odds:
College Basketball odds: Duke-Notre Dame Odds
Duke: -5 (-110)
Notre Dame: +5 (-110)
Over: 143.5 (-114)
Under: 143.5 (-106)
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Why Duke Could Cover the Spread
The Notre Dame roster Mike Brey has assembled is a cohesive roster, but doesn’t have that much high-end talent. Keep in mind that the 2022 ACC is not very good. The league would get seven or eight NCAA Tournament bids in a good year. This year, the ACC might get no more than four or five bids. Notre Dame is doing well, but the Irish have undeniably been helped by the ACC’s overall regression as a conference in 2022. Duke has so much more talent than the Irish that the Blue Devils could very easily blow the doors off Notre Dame.
Why Notre Dame Could Cover the Spread
The ceiling for Duke is high, but the floor is lower than it probably should be. Duke did beat Gonzaga — that’s the very best version of this team — but Coach K’s crew can also lose at Florida State and allow Clemson to have a chance to win in the last minute in Cameron Indoor Stadium. The gap between the best version of Duke and the worst version is large. There is so much variance between the two iterations. If Notre Dame gets the bad version of Duke, it will not only cover but win outright.
Final Duke-Notre Dame Prediction & Pick
If Good Duke shows up, this is a 15-point Blue Devil rout … but Good Duke only occasionally makes an appearance. Notre Dame probably won’t win outright, but since the spread is 5.5 points and not 2.5, the Irish seem like a good choice at home against the road-tripping Devils, who had to play on the road Saturday. Notre Dame got to play at home on Saturday and should be relatively fresh.
Final Duke-Notre Dame Pick: Notre Dame +5.5