Duke Basketball: Wisconsin's Experience an Ideal Test for Young Blue Devils

If the Duke Blue Devils are the hot new toy that every kid wants this Christmas, the Wisconsin Badgers are the tried-and-true Legos that never go out of style.

One of the biggest early-season tilts—and the crown jewel of this week's Big Ten/ACC Challenge—features a clash of tremendously divergent styles, not just in how Duke and Wisconsin perform on the court, but how the programs have been assembled.

Duke's starting lineup features three freshmen, players who have a combined 21 career starts. Compare that to Wisconsin, which starts three seniors (one of them in his fifth year of school) and a junior, each of whom reached 21 starts on his own midway through last season.

Seth Wenig/Associated Press

Four of Duke's 10 regulars are in their first year of college, while Wisconsin's roster includes five freshmen (including two redshirts) who have played only 35 total minutes in 2014-15.

The flashy new bells-and-whistles approach has become the trend among the power-conference teams, those that are able to land 4- and 5-star talent on an annual basis even though they know some (or all) of those stars will be gone after as little as one season.

Duke has been doing this for a while, but this current group is younger than normal for coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is starting three freshmen for the first time since 1983.

That lack of experience hasn't been an issue yet for Duke, as its young talent has been more than enough to handle the more veteran teams it has faced. And in the toughest game to date, last month against Michigan State in the Champions Classic, the Devils were facing another team breaking in inexperienced starters.

Wisconsin brings a completely different litmus test, however. And having the Badgers be this young group's first game in front of a hostile crowd adds even more intrigue.

The Badgers have four starters back from last year's Final Four team, a quartet that came into the season with a combined 252 starts. Only 33 of those came during their freshmen seasons, however, as coach Bo Ryan has typically waited for his players to develop on the bench or redshirt before being inserted in the lineup.

"In an era when one-and-done kids dominate the news, it's refreshing to have a team like the Badgers that is talented and experienced," wrote CBS Sports' Jerry Palm.

That approach has been wildly successful during Ryan's 13 previous seasons, all of which ended in the NCAA tournament and include six Sweet 16s and two Elite Eights. It's been more of the same this year, as Wisconsin used that experience to navigate the ultra-tough field to win the Battle 4 Atlantis last week. When Duke won that tournament in 2012, it did so with three senior starters.

Center Jahlil Okafor has been nearly unstoppable for Duke so far this season, yet Wisconsin senior Frank Kaminsky will offer a battle on both ends of the court that he hasn't yet seen.

"He's a proven big man, with myself I'm just a freshman who's played seven games of college basketball, so that's going to be a challenge in itself," Okafor said Monday.

Same goes for 6'6" wing Justise Winslow, who has to contend with 6'9" junior Sam Dekker, while point guard Tyus Jones will have to go toe-to-toe with senior Traevon Jackson and his 74 career starts.

Duke isn't liable to face a team this good and this battle-tested at any other point this season, yet the experience the Blue Devils' youngest players get from this contest will enable them to handle the kind of adversity they'll see when ACC play begins next month.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.