{"id":161698,"date":"2025-10-06T15:07:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T19:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=161698"},"modified":"2025-10-06T15:08:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T19:08:36","slug":"duke-all-over-media-preseason-awards-lists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/10\/06\/duke-all-over-media-preseason-awards-lists\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke All Over Media Preseason Awards Lists"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the lead up to ACC Media Day, media networks are releasing their preseason rankings and award expectations. USA Today is a prominent network<\/a> in the college basketball landscape and their writers view Duke in quite a bright light. Let’s analyze all the spots Blue Devils appear in the USA Today Preseason lists.<\/p>\n

Duke Highly Regarded by USA Today Writers<\/h2>\n

Conference Standings<\/h3>\n

The writers predicted Duke to finish ahead of Louisville, NC State, North Carolina, and Virginia. This is a very similar list to ours and most other pundits. The Blue Devils appear to be the clear favorite in the ACC<\/a> despite losing their entire starting lineup from last season including five NBA draft picks.<\/p>\n

Other interesting parts of the standings include Miami ranked highly at number six with first year coach Jai Lucas who came from Duke. Syracuse at number ten is also slightly lower than most expect given the influx of talent mixed with a good returning core.<\/p>\n

\"Jon
Oct 3, 2025; Durham, NC, USA; Jayson Tatum, NBA Boston Celtics Player helps coach alongside Duke Blue Devils head coach Jon Scheyer during the Countdown to Craziness at the Cameron Indoor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jaylynn Nash-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All-Conference Teams<\/h3>\n

Cameron Boozer found his way on to the First Team as a unanimous selection. It is rare that writers highly regard a true freshman who has never been seen against college competition. However, Boozer follows in Cooper Flagg<\/a>‘s footsteps and is a unanimous preseason selection. The first team is also filled by Darrion Williams<\/a> (NC State), Ryan Conwell<\/a> (Louisville), Markus Burton<\/a> (Notre Dame), and fellow freshman Mikel Brown Jr (Louisville).<\/p>\n

The Second Team has one other Blue Devil on it, Isaiah Evans<\/a>. Evans returns to Duke where he is expected to have a monster season as one of the best shooters in the country. He is also likely to be the second leading scorer on this Blue Devils roster<\/a>. Evans is joined by three Tar Heels on the Second Team, including Henri Vesaar, Caleb Wilson, and Seth Trimble<\/a>. Malik Reneau<\/a>, a transfer to Miami rounds out the group.<\/p>\n

Notable omissions include JJ Starling<\/a> from Syracuse, Malik Thomas<\/a> from Virginia, Neoklis Avdalas from Virginia Tech, and Patrick Ngongba<\/a> from Duke.<\/p>\n

Newcomer of the Year<\/h3>\n

Darrion Williams is expected to win this in a landslide. Duke did not get any major additions in the transfer portal this year and therefore are unlikely to compete for this award.<\/p>\n

Freshman of the Year<\/h3>\n

This feels like a two-man race between Cameron Boozer and Mikel Brown Jr who are both likely to be top ten picks in the 2026 NBA Draft. Boozer is certainly the favorite but Brown will not make it easy. Both players are highly respected and the expectations couldn’t be higher. They are also on great teams who will compete for the conference title. Is it possible that the winner of the conference is the deciding factor of this award?<\/p>\n

Player of the Year<\/h3>\n

Cameron Boozer also claimed this award on preseason voting narrowly edging out Darrion Williams. These two are fairly similar players and their stats will likely look quite similar. A freshman winning player of the year takes a special type of season, a la Flagg. Boozer will likely take his lumps along the way which might make it difficult to nail this award. However, the fact that he is in competition for it in the eye’s of writers tells you a lot about how great he can be. Boozer has a chance to be one of the truly special Blue Devils over the last decade. Let’s see how it all plays out.<\/p>\n

ACC Media Day<\/h3>\n

Coverage begins October 7th in Charlotte. The two day event ends October 8th and Duke will be the main part of the coverage that day. The Blue Devils can be followed on ACC Network where there will be wall to wall coverage all week.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Jaylynn Nash-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the lead up to ACC Media Day, media networks are releasing their preseason rankings and award expectations. USA Today is a prominent network in the college basketball landscape and their writers view Duke in quite a bright light. Let’s analyze all the spots Blue Devils appear in the USA Today Preseason lists. Duke Highly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3244,"featured_media":161702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,773,3],"tags":[49715,861,48981],"class_list":["post-161698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-college-basketball","category-news","tag-cameron-boozer","tag-duke-blue-devils","tag-jon-scheyer"],"modified_by":"Zach Kircher","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3244"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161698"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161705,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161698\/revisions\/161705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}