The 2025 Duke basketball team has all eyes on it after the amount of talent on the roster last season, led by Cooper Flagg. They made it to the Final Four last season but were upset by the Houston Cougars in one of the biggest upsets in recent college basketball memory. The toughness and physicality were the difference, and for 2025, there are more questions with Flagg gone.
Duke basketball is a program that reloads year in and year out because of its brand in the college basketball world. They enter the 2025 preseason AP Top 25 ranked sixth in the country. They are reloading with the best recruiting class in the country. They brought in five first-year students who will be key immediately, and two transfers.
Three of the first five-year students that the Blue Devils are bringing in are five-stars, and they also brought in two four-stars. Cameron Boozer, Dame Sarr, and Nik Khamenia are five stars, and Cameron's twin brother, Cayden Boozer, and Sebastian Wilkins are four stars.
The Blue Devils were the highest-ranked ACC team, while Louisville was next at 11th, and then the final ACC team is North Carolina at No. 25.
The talent on the roster is undeniable. However, what separates teams in March is experience, and this team does not have as much experience as last year's team.
Caleb Foster will be the only upperclassman in the starting five. The rest of the starters will likely be sophomores Isaiah Evans and Patrick Ngongba II, as well as freshmen Dame Sarr and Cameron Boozer. The Blue Devils also lack players proven to produce on a championship team.
Maliq Brown is the only other returner who played significant minutes last season. He has a legitimate chance to be the best defender in college basketball in 2025-26, but he has not been great on offense.
The biggest key for Duke this season is how their first-year students play, especially the Boozer twins. If they get the most out of them, then this Duke team has a chance to be special again.
