Next Up – Florida In The ACC/SEC Challenge

Date 12/2 || Time 7:30 || Venue Cameron Indoor Stadium || Video ESPN

Duke’s opponent in the ACC/SEC Challenge is defending national champs Florida.

Florida lost a fair amount from last year, not least of all Walter Clayton, who had a terrific season last year, including the most critical play of the national championship game when he forced Houston’s Emmanuel Sharp to balk on Houston’s last shot.

He’s not easy to replace, but Todd Golden has a fair amount of talent again, both new and old.

Alex Condon, a 6-11/236 lb. junior out of Perth, Australia is back, as is Thomas Haugh, a 6-9/215 lb. junior. Micah Handlogten, a 7-1/260 lb. senior out of Lake Norman, has been starting the last couple of games in place of 7-1/265 lb. Rueben Chinyelu.

Needless to say, Florida has a massive front line. We doubt we’ll see Olivier Rioux, other than in warmups or possibly in a particular situation, but at 7-9 he’s the tallest player in the history of college basketball.

Florida is breaking in a new backcourt of 6-3 sophomore Boogie Fland, who was at Arkansas last year, and Xavian Lee, a 6-4 senior transfer from Princeton, have taken a bit of time to settle in, particularly Lee.

Fland though is a very good defender and Lee, who was avidly pursued by Duke in the transfer portal, is coming on.

For depth, Golden’s Gators have Urban Klavzar, a 6-1 junior, Isaiah Brown, a 6-4 sophomore and Alex Lloyd, a 6-3 freshman. CJ Ingram has also been getting some time.

The most obvious thing though is that Florida’s rotation is huge. Jon Scheyer has made size an emphasis and Duke is fairly big too, but Florida is huge. That’s going to be a challenge.

Duke counters with starters Cameron Boozer, 6-9/250, Patrick Ngongba, 6-11/250, Dame Sarr, 6-8, 6-6 Isaiah Evans and 6-5 Caleb Foster.

Maliq Brown (6-9 senior), Nik Khamenia (6-8 freshman), Darren Harris (6-6 sophomore) and Cayden Boozer (6-4 freshman) are the help off the bench.

In passing, it’s interesting that after a period of college basketball generally being shorter, like the NBA, it’s moving back to a focus on size. Just look around and you’ll see.

With that type of size inside, it’s going to be a lot tougher for Boozer to have his way. If he gets past Condon, he’ll see Handlogten, Haugh or Chinyelu. So ball movement and outside shooting will be important, as will defense.

Golden is an analytics guy and it’s been effective: he used it to get nine straight stops against Houston in last spring’s title game, so obviously he’ll have it all plugged in for the Blue Devils.

We don’t know, but given what we’ve seen so far this season, our guess is that Duke will certainly try to go to Boozer inside, but given Florida’s size and a solid chance they’ll double team him at least in some situations. That means that a lot of Duke’s offense may come from outside, and that means that Boozer, along with Evans and possibly Harris, will get a lot of opportunities. So will Foster.

Mismatches work both ways of course and this could be a fun game for Sarr and Khamenia, both of whom might be smaller than their defenders, but they’ll almost certainly be quicker as well. And there’s a pretty good chance that Boozer might start outside and work in.

Florida is a work in progress, given that they brought in a lot of new players, and they’ll probably be better later than now. Their defense in particular isn’t where it will be.

They’ll still be a tough test for the Blue Devils and next week for UConn as well. This will be Duke’s toughest test so far.

Check back for more links as they become available.

• Duke vs Florida basketball preview, players to watch, predictions

• Duke Basketball Announces Blackout Plans for ACC/SEC Challenge

• Duke And Florida: An Interesting History

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