USI will play one of college basketball's blue bloods in November multi-team event
EVANSVILLE — The University of Southern Indiana men’s basketball team will face a blue blood next season.
The Screaming Eagles will fly to Durham, North Carolina, to face Duke on Nov. 24 as part of a multi-team event the Blue Devils are hosting. Duke will host three games, with the other two being against Bucknell and La Salle.
USI will also play at La Salle on Nov. 17 and at Bucknell on Nov. 20.
"We are excited about the opportunity to play at such a historic venue," USI coach Stan Gouard said in a news release. "For years Duke has been the blue blood of college basketball with its rich tradition. Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski) has left that program in a great place and Jon Scheyer has done a spectacular job of picking up where Coach K left off.
"Playing at Cameron Indoor Stadium, and in front the Cameron Crazies, will be a moment in time that our student-athletes will never forget."
Duke announced the MTE in a news release Tuesday morning. College basketball analyst Rocco Miller first reported the games last month and the Courier & Press recently filed a public records request to obtain the game contracts.
This is the first new schedule development for USI this offseason. The other know contests are return games on the road against Indiana State and Southern Illinois along with home matchups against Chicago State, Western Illinois, Purdue-Fort Wayne and Bowling Green.
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“It just puts us in the fire early to see if we can build some type of camaraderie with our team,” Gouard said in March about scheduling big opponents. “It lets us know where we are pretty early versus waiting until November, December.
He also noted the financial gains of playing against bigger programs. USI received $75,000 to travel to Missouri in last season’s opener.
The Blue Devils are a formidable opponent for the Eagles. Duke finished 27-9 this past season and made the second round of the NCAA Tournament after winning the Atlantic Coast Conference championship. The Blue Devils ended ranked No. 18 on KenPom and have potential All-American returners in Kyle Filipowski and Mark Mitchell.
Other standouts Jeremy Roach, Dariq Whitehead and Dereck Lively II have declared for the NBA Draft following Jon Scheyer’s first season as Duke head coach to succeed Mike Krzyzewski. Still, the Blue Devils are one of two programs to not lose any players to the transfer portal, the other being UCLA. Duke has the second-ranked 2023 recruiting class in the country behind Kentucky, per 247Sports.
The Blue Devils were unbeaten at Cameron Indoor Stadium last season.
"As we enter into our second season of the Division I era," Gouard said, "it is important to compete against teams that are going to help our program and our University grow on a national level and playing at Duke does that."
USI went 16-17 in its inaugural D-I season and was the only transitioning team to play in the postseason, falling to San Jose State in the College Basketball Invitational. The Eagles finished seventh in the Ohio Valley Conference and fell in the first round of the league tournament.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Southern Indiana Screaming Eagles: USI men's basketball to face Duke
