The Duke 2024-25 Men’s Basketball season is starting to take shape. Thursday morning, Duke released their 2024-25 non-conference schedule, which includes highly anticipated matchups against Kentucky, Arizona, Kansas, Auburn, and Illinois.

The unofficial start of the season, as previously announced by the team, will take place with Countdown to Craziness, which will be on October 4th. Countdown, where fans get their first look at both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams, occurs a month before the men open up the regular season against Maine.

The team will have an exhibition game against 2024 CIAA champions Lincoln (Pa.) on October 19th before opening the regular season at home against Maine on November 4th. The team will follow that up with a home game against Army on November 8th before traveling to Atlanta to play Kentucky in the Champions Classic on November 12th.

The team returns home to play Wofford on November 16th before heading on the road to the western part of the country. They will play a highly anticipated game on the road at Arizona on November 22nd before traveling to Las Vegas to play Kansas on November 26th. Both teams are expected to be among the top teams in the country.

The team returns home after the western trip for 4 games, first against Seattle on November 29th. They then host Auburn in the ACC/SEC Challenge on December 4th. They then have a break for reading period and exams before coming back on November 10th against Incarnate Word before another week off. They then play George Mason on December 17th.

The final non-conference game will occur in the meat of the ACC conference schedule. Duke will travel to Madison Square Garden in New York City to play Illinois on February 22nd in what is expected to be another top non-conference matchup.

The rest of the ACC schedule is expected in a few weeks, but Duke will have home games against UNC, Wake Forest, Miami, Cal, Florida State, NC State, Notre Dame, Pitt, Stanford, and Virginia Tech. They will hit the road to play UNC, Wake Forest, Miami, Boston College, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Louisville, SMU, Syracuse, and Virginia.

The full non-conference slate (with Bart Torvik preseason ranking in parentheses):

Fri 10/4 – Countdown to Craziness
Sat 10/19 – Lincoln (Pa.) (exhibition)
Mon 11/4 – Maine (217)
Fri 11/8 – Army (325)
Tue 11/12 – Kentucky (Champions Classic – Atlanta) (23)
Sat 11/16 – Wofford (149)
Fri 11/22 – @ Arizona (10)
Tue 11/26 – Kansas (Las Vegas) (4)
Fri 11/29 – Seattle (137)
Wed 12/4 – Auburn (ACC/SEC Challenge) (7)
Tue 12/10 – Incarnate Word (292)
Tue 12/17 – George Mason (85)
Sat 2/22 – Illinois (NYC) (20)

*Bold – home games

It’s a pretty strong non-conference schedule for Duke, with some big-time games to test what is expected to be one of the best teams in the country.