Rece Davis explains why Duke is a title contender on College GameDay

During a special two-hour edition of College GameDay on Saturday morning at the Kennel in Spokane, WS, where Gonzaga plays its home games, the crew outlined which teams they believe can actually win the NCAA Tournament as we barrel down the stretch of the regular season. One controversial team that was included in their list: the Duke Blue Devils.

Sure, Duke is a historically great program who is one of the all-time leaders in national titles and was just in the Final Four a year ago. So why is it so crazy to include the Blue Devils as a contender? Well, perhaps because the man responsible for all of their championships, Coach K, is no longer manning the sidelines, while first-year head coach Jon Scheyer is the new head of the program. Also, this year’s group is a slightly above average ACC team in a down year for the conference that likely won’t earn a top-four seed in the tournament.

The inclusion of Duke begged the question from GameDay host Rece Davis: “Who in the world put Duke in there?”

Jay Bilas, the resident Dookie on the program, tried to take up for them, saying, “Duke is trending up. You don’t think they should be on there?”

Davis then surprised folks by revealing that he’s actually the member of the crew that believes in Duke as a contender.

“No, because I’m the one that put Duke on there,” he responded to Bilas.

“Explain yourself!” howled Seth Greenberg at such an assertion. And then Davis did, outlining the following reasons why Duke can get back to the Final Four and even contend to cut the nets down in Houston this April:

“Let me explain why Duke can win the National Championship. They’ve got a rim protector in Dereck Lively. They got (Kyle) Filipowski. They’ve got Dariq Whitehead now to make shots. Now, he has to stay healthy and stay in the game. But the most important reason is because, you said it all year (motions to the crew), everybody’s got scars, right? And if you’re going to have a year, like, say, 2014, where you had UCONN and Kentucky playing for (the National Championship), a six(-seed) and an eight(-seed) — this would fit in well for Duke if they get hot at the right time.”

Certainly a case to be made Duke is at its healthiest and best right now. If that sustains, the Blue Devils absolutely have a higher ceiling than whatever their eventual seed will be. National title contenders, though? Sounds like a stretch in year one for Coach Scheyer.