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The Duke Blue Devils may not be the No. 1 ranked team in the country but they certainly are playing like the best team in college basketball. Since a stunning home loss to Stephen F. Austin, the No. 3 Dookies have rattled off nine straight wins by an average margin of 22.8 points with all but one by double-digits. Looking to extend their winning streak and remain perfect in ACC play, the Blue Devils take on the Clemson Tigers on Tuesday. The Tigers are bubbling with confidence after they won for the first time ever in Chapel Hill, taking down UNC, 79-76, in overtime on Saturday.
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Duke Blue Devils at Clemson Tigers
Date and Time: Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 7 p.m. ET
Location: Littlejohn Coliseum, Clemson, SC
Opening College Basketball Odds: Duke -11.5, O/U 133
Duke at Clemson TV Coverage: ESPN
Odds Analysis
Coach K just reloads and he’s at it again. There was some reason for concern a few weeks ago when Duke was bested, 85-83, in overtime at Cameron Indoor by SFA. No worries, though. Running off nine straight victories after that, the Dookies moved to 15-1 overall with six of those wins by 30 or more points. That includes a 90-59 drubbing of Wake Forest on Saturday. Duke is also on a heater at the betting window covering the 20-point line against Wake to go 6-2 ATS in their last eight games. Clemson enters on two-game winning streak after its historic win at North Carolina. The Tigers are 8-7 SU and 9-6 ATS, but they’ve lost both games against ranked foes.
Duke Blue Devils
The names change every year, but when you bring in a crop of five-star recruits the results are always the same. That loss to Stephen F. Austin at the end of November is just mindboggling. Duke won its first six games of the year beating Kansas in the opener and dismantling lesser foes, and they haven’t lost since. The Lumberjacks are no slouch with a current 13-3 record, but they certainly aren’t in the same league as Duke.
Motivated after that setback, the Dookies have dominated teams winning eight of those nine games by at least 12 points with five of them by 25 or more points. Led by rookies Vernon Carey Jr., Cassius Stanley and Matthew Hurt, Duke possesses one of the most efficient offenses in the country. They rank fourth nationally with 83.8 points per game while knocking down 49 percent of their shots, the ninth-best accuracy mark in DI. Carey does a bulk of the damage with team-highs of 17.4 points, 8.6 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game. But the Blue Devils are far from a one-man show.
Carey was limited to eight points in the win over Wake, but it didn’t stop Duke from another strong offensive game. Sophomore Tre Jones, the veteran leader, picked up the scoring slack with 23 points and Stanley added 16 as the Blue Devils hit the 90-point mark for the second time in three games.
Clemson Tigers
There will be some somber students moping around campus Tuesday after the Clemson football team lost in the national championship game. I think they’ll get aroused when the Blue Devils make an appearance at Littlejohn Coliseum. After ending a 59-game road losing streak to the Tar Heels the four-game overall skid against Duke is next to nothing. Still, there hasn’t been a lot of success on the hardwood. Since the turn of the century Clemson has beaten Duke just three times in 30 games. The good news is that all three wins came at home.
The Tigers enter this matchup feeling good about themselves after stringing together back-to-back wins for the first time since before Thanksgiving. It put an end to a stretch that saw them lose six of seven games after opening the year at 5-1. The mini streak wouldn’t be noteworthy if Clemson had beaten a team other than North Carolina on Saturday. The win ended decades of futility against UNC on the road. Clemson had gone 0-59 before storming back from a 10-point deficit with just over two minutes left in regulation.
Not to put a damper on their excitement but let’s face it, this UNC squad isn’t what we normally see. The Heels fell to 8-8 overall and Clemson has a better overall and ACC record at this moment. It’s hard to see the Tigers doing enough offensively to keep up with Duke in this one. Aamir Simms leads them in scoring with 13.9 points per game and Tevin Mack is the only other double-figure scorer.
Bet Duke at Clemson at BookMaker.eu
Congratulations to Clemson for finally getting a win at UNC, but the Heels stink and were without their two best players. Now it’s back to reality. Duke has no problem scoring points and they’ve played shutdown defense allowing an average of just 57.7 points in their last seven games. That’s not good for a Tigers squad that struggles to score the basketball.
College Basketball Score Prediction: Duke 82, Clemson 65
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- Phil Simon, Gambling911.com
