The 2026-27 men’s college basketball season tips off on Monday with well over 100 Division I games on Monday to enjoy. While there are a number of marquee matchups involving Power 4 teams, there are also plenty of spots where some of the premier teams in the sport get to flex their muscle against an inferior opponent.
One such contest comes in Durham, North Carolina, where we’ll see Duke host Army in a rematch of last season’s contest in West Point. The Blue Devils turned that one into a laugher very early on, and the market is expecting a similar result this time around. Duke enters this one as a massive 43.5-point favorite, with the total is set at 152.5 at DraftKings Sportsbook. Here’s a college basketball pick, preview and prediction for Monday’s game between the Black Knights and the Blue Devils.
Army vs. Duke prediction, preview
From a metrics perspective, Duke is the top team in the nation heading into the season, with the Blue Devils sitting at No. 1 at both KenPom and Barttorvik, while checking in at No. 2 in Evan Miyakawa’s ratings. Jon Scheyer’s group is the national title favorite coming into the year, as well as the significant favorite to take home a third consecutive ACC championship.
It’s easy to see why most expert’s have Duke penciled in for a run to the Final Four. After all, the Blue Devils likely have more talent across their roster than any other team in the nation, and they were very impressive in a pair of preseason victories over Tennessee and Kansas. Caleb Foster and Cayden Boozer are returning at the point guard spot to lead the offense, which immediately gives Scheyer’s group a reliable veteran presence in the backcourt. If anything happens to either player, freshman five-star Deron Rippey Jr. impressed in the preseason and he could assume a fairly significant role on this team at some point.
Elsewhere, Patrick Ngongba and Dame Sarr return to lead an absolutely loaded frontcourt that is easily among the deepest units in the nation. In terms of new additions, freshman Joaquim Boumtje-Boumtje was a consensus five-star recruit and he has an outside chance to be the best player on this team by the time March rolls around. As if that wasn’t enough, I haven’t even mentioned John Blackwell — who transfers over from Wisconsin as an excellent scorer that also impacts the game with his intuitive off-ball movement and willingness to dig in on defense.
On the other side, Army is unsurprisingly a pretty experienced group that actually had a couple of decent results during nonconference play a season ago. This year, the Black Knights bring back three starters in the backcourt and four total players that tallied over 20 minutes per game last season. This certainly isn’t the most talented group in the world, but they do play a very slow pace (ranked 222nd in adjusted tempo at KenPom) and that could come into play when considering the massive spread at play.
Army vs. Duke pick, best bet
Make no mistake; this Duke roster is almost as good as it gets in this era of the sport. The Blue Devils are going to be a terror for opponents all season long, and it should start in the opening game against an overmatched opponent. These teams met a season ago and we saw Duke demolish Army by 55 points in a spot where the Blue Devils could’ve theoretically taken their foot off the gas a bit toward the end of the game. I’d anticipate that we see something similar to kick off the season on Monday.