Duke Basketball: Inconsistency Will Doom Blue Devils in March Madness

It's tough to trust the Duke Blue Devils coming into the 2012 NCAA tournament.

This is a highly inconsistent team—one day they look like they can be the best team in the country, and the next they're getting beat by inferior opponents—and an inconsistent team is something most people stray away from when choosing their March Madness brackets.

If you choose not to trust in the Blue Devils, I will not blame you one bit.

On the surface, they seem like they have all the right pieces to be a national title contender. Sensational freshman

Austin Rivers has exploded onto the college basketball scene and leads the team with 15.4 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game. Anytime you can get that kind of contribution from a freshman, you are very dangerous.

Add in Junior forward Mason Plumlee and his 10.9 points, 9.1 rebounds and 1.7 points per game, as well as guard Seth Curry—who has 13.4 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.5 assist per game—and you've got the makings of what appears to be a national championship team.

Well, if only they could be consistent...

One look at the Blue Devils' schedule will send chills down the spine of anyone picking them to go the whole way in the 2012 NCAA tournament.

There are plenty of wins, as to be expected, but when this team fell, they fell hard.

They lost to Ohio State early in the season, which wasn't surprising considering the Buckeyes' No. 2 ranking, but they lost to them by a grand total of 22 points. That's not a good look.

Their next losses came at the hands of the Temple Owls of all teams, the Florida State Seminoles and the Miami Hurricanes.

Finally, they finished the year off with an absolute beatdown at the hands of the North Carolina Tar Heels, 88-70, and then got bounced out of the ACC tournament in a semifinals loss to Florida State. The 62-59 score was close, but it doesn't mention the fact that the Blue Devils were down double-digits and had to make a comeback.

Which team are we going to get in March Madness?

I can't tell you if the possible contender will show up or the borderline pretender, and that's what makes this team so scary. They could run through the tournament just as easily as they could get knocked out in the second round.

That's a team trait that will lead to disaster in the tournament. So much of being a good NCAA tournament team is the ability to capture and hold onto momentum for games at a time.

This team can grab it one minute and lose it the next, and that's going to come back to haunt them.

Good luck if you're picking the Blue Devils. I don't see it ending up well for your bracket.