Why Seth Curry Will Be Tested Very Early as a Point Guard for Duke Basketball

On the verge of making history, coach Mike Krzyzewski needs three wins to pass his mentor Bob Knight for the most wins in Division I Men’s Basketball.

He currently has 900 wins under his belt and Knight finished his career with 902.

Duke opens the season hosting Belmont and Presbyterian in the Maui Invitational on November 11 and 12, respectively.

Then on November 15 they tangle with Michigan State in the Champions Classic.

One would easily think that Tom Izzo might put up a fight to prevent Coach K from reaching his milestone, but that would be foolhardy.

That’s because Belmont may not be the walkover everyone expects them to be. Yes, Duke is at home where they normally win, but Belmont has a veteran team whereas Duke is still trying to find its legs with a relatively new squad.

“We have to have a chip on our shoulder, an edge,'' Bruins coach Rick Byrd told Andy Katz.”We've got 10 of 12 back, and I would expect we'd be better. I feel good about us at every spot the way we play.''

Katz envisions that Belmont will press and run with multiple players at each position. That sounds like a nightmare scenario for first-year converted-point guard Seth Curry. Curry is renowned as a shooter, but he will have to bring his ball-handling skills and decision-making into this game. Though Austin Rivers and Quinn Cook will be on hand to help out.

"We press until we have people beat,'' Byrd said. ”We pressed every possession. We're not playing through fatigue except in those rare occasions because we've got five new guys coming in. We've always run, to some extent, and shot 3s, but we haven't pressed.

“The defensive numbers show that we were second [in the nation] in forced turnovers per game,” continued Byrd. “And we were first in victory margin and that's playing 12 home games out of 35 [last season]. I don't think you'll see that with a mid-major playing a third of its games away from home.''

Duke will be favored to win but they will have to come together early as a team, to counteract this kind of pressure.

In his ESPN chat wrap, Coach K described the season opener against Belmont, 30-5 last year, as “tough” but he reckons it’s just what his team needs.

In his last showdown with Byrd, Duke won 71-70. That was a first-round game of the 2008 NCAA tournament which was sealed when DeMarcus Nelson made a steal and Gerald Henderson (21 points) hit the winning basket with 11.9 seconds left on the clock.

The roster of both teams are different (Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler were freshmen then) but Rick Byrd has been coaching at Belmont for 25 years and he devised a perfect strategy to beat Duke that night and would have succeeded if it wasn’t for Henderson’s steely nerves.

Duke normally wins their season opener but Belmont does not seem to be aware of that as they come seeking a big win to start a promising season where they are projected to make at least the second round of the NCAA tournament.