Duke basketball a No. 5 seed in 2023 NCAA Tournament, will face Oral Roberts in March Madness

Duke is playing better than it has all season, and that surge is in perfect sync with March Madness.

Coming off its 22nd ACC Tournament championship, the Blue Devils (26-8) have earned a No. 5 seed in the East Region of the 2023 NCAA Tournament, and they’ll get to open in Orlando, Florida.

Duke will face No. 12 Oral Roberts in the first round Friday. Purdue is the East’s No. 1 seed.

The Blue Devils, led by the top-ranked freshman class of recruits in the country, have seen their share of struggles under first-year coach Jon Scheyer. Injuries kept Dariq Whitehead and Dereck Lively sidelined to start the season. Kyle Filipowski (ankle) and Jeremy Roach (toe) also dealt with dings. And Duke was on the wrong side of a couple of controversial last-second officiating decisions that might make one wonder if they’d gone the other way had veteran coach Mike Krzyzewski been on the sideline.

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Those obstacles became stepping stones for Scheyer’s young squad, and the result has been a late-season surge with Duke entering NCAA Tournament play on a nine-game winning streak. That run includes payback victories over NC State, Miami and Virginia, all of whom dealt the Blue Devils a regular-season loss, and a rivalry win at UNC.

Junior guard Jeremy Roach has been Duke’s leading scorer during the streak, averaging 14.8 points, with freshman center Filipowski right behind him at 14.5 points per game to go with 8.3 rebounds per game over the last nine wins.

Freshmen Tyrese Proctor and Lively have increased their contributions and efficiency over the run, too. Lively has averaged 7.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.3 blocks — all up from his overall regular-season averages. Proctor has averaged 10.1 points over the winning streak, and he’s had 4.3 assists per game with 1.4 turnovers per game.

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“I think for us, it was hard just to get the continuity,” Scheyer said Saturday after Duke’s league championship win. “And so not only are each of these guys growing every single day, every single week as players, but then when you don’t have — when you have certain guys out, it’s hard to build as a team.

“So these guys just stuck with it.”

Mar 11, 2023; Greensboro, NC, USA; Duke Blue Devils players celebrate with the trophy after winning the Championship of the ACC Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: In March Madness, Duke to face Oral Roberts in NCAA Tournament 2023