Trietley: Blue Devils will be tough team to beat this season

Undefeated and the reigning national champions, the No. 1 Duke Blue Devils are the gold standard… Undefeated and the reigning national champions, the No. 1 Duke Blue Devils are the gold standard of college basketball.

Any team that wants to be No. 1 — namely No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Pitt and No. 4 Kansas — has to bide its time and wait for the Blue Devils to lose a game.

With the darlings of Durham scoring nearly 90 points per contest entering Wednesday night’s matchup against Bradley, a loss might not come for a while.

The 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers were the last team to go undefeated. The ACC is down this year — Duke is the only ranked team — but the idea of the Blue Devils running the table is still far-fetched. Head coach Mike Krzyzewski is the first to admit it. “There’s no way our team would be able do that,” he told Jason King of Yahoo Sports last week.

That just about covers it: the Blue Devils will lose sometime. But when? Let’s go through the schedule.

Dec. 11 vs. St. Louis (3-3), Dec. 20 vs. Elon (2-5), Dec. 29 at UNC Greensboro (0-7)

Duke played Bradley Wednesday night at 9 p.m., and I can only assume the Blue Devils won to kick off the easiest portion of their schedule. Consider it their break. They played Marquette, Kansas State, Oregon, Michigan State and Butler all in a row. It’s probably for the best that they sprinkled some mid-major opponents into their schedule.

Fun fact: Elon and UNC Greensboro play in the “Southern, North,” the Southern Conference’s northern division. Unfortunately, neither team seems to win often, or in UNC Greensboro’s case, win ever.

Upset odds: The vertical leap of Gilbert Brown in inches to 1.

Jan. 9 vs. Maryland (6-3), Feb. 2 at Maryland

Maryland has a great basketball program led by head coach Gary Williams, and the Terrapins beat the Blue Devils in their meeting last March. They could have beaten Pitt this year had they made a free throw in the first half. The 6-3 record is misleading.

They did lose star player Greivis Vasquez after last season, and they don’t have the depth that the Blue Devils have. It will take a magnificent effort and some great coaching to outdo Duke, but they have two chances.

Upset odds: The number of Dion Lewis touchdowns against Cincinnati to 1.

Feb. 26 at Virginia Tech (4-4)

The Hokies were second in the ACC Preseason Poll, but they pulled a Pitt football and lost every one of their important early games despite guard Malcolm Delaney averaging over 20 points per game. They also suffered an ugly loss to Virginia on Sunday.

Virginia Tech doesn’t play Duke until late February, so the team has plenty of time to round into shape around Delaney. And with the game at Virginia Tech, if the Blue Devils are still undefeated, you can bet it’ll be a hostile atmosphere for them to play in.

Upset odds: Marc-Andre Fleury’s goals-against average to 1.

March 5 at North Carolina (5-3)

If the Blue Devils make it this far undefeated, they’ll have already beaten the Tar Heels in February. But you’d have to throw that game out for the rematch, as well as the records of each team. When it comes to Duke and North Carolina, the stats don’t mean anything, or so the clichéd North Carolinians tell me.

The Tar Heels would be playing for pride. The Blue Devils have blown by them in terms of results since they won the NCAA Tournament in 2009. They can’t let them stroll into the 2011 Tournament undefeated. If the Blue Devils make it to the final weekend of the regular season without a loss, it’s only fitting that North Carolina will be the team that gives one to them.

Unfortunately for Ohio State, Pitt, Kansas and the other top teams that hoped to earn that illustrious No. 1 ranking, they’ll have lost by then too.