Duke's 5-star freshmen outplayed Kentucky's veteran-led squad

The Champion’s Classic saw Duke beat Kentucky at its own game on Tuesday night in New York City.

Wildcat head coach John Calipari made the one-and-done system famous during his early years at Kentucky, but it didn’t take long for Mike Krzyzewski to adopt the freshman formula as it proved successful.

Following a uniquely strange 2020-21 season that saw both programs struggle, Calipari took a different approach with his roster-building, adding four transfers and relying less on first-year players. Krzyzewski, on the other hand, mostly stayed in the high school ranks and reloaded with three five-star prospects.

Two of those three youngsters, Paolo Banchero and Trevor Keels, lit up the oldest team that Calipari has ever had during his tenure at Kentucky.

The freshman duo led Duke with a combined 47 points on 17-29 shooting (58.6 percent), including a 12-15 mark from the free-throw line. Despite both players dealing with cramping issues throughout the second half, Banchero and Keels were nearly unstoppable.

Kentucky was almost too intimidated by them, particularly Banchero.

“Really good. Really good. He’s really good. Great kid, great family. Really good,” Calipari said of Banchero after the game. “You almost, you can’t — we had too much respect for him. We backed away and now he shoots. No. Make him make basketball plays. I kept saying it, but we’re afraid, so they kept backing up.”

There was no hiding Banchero’s abilities coming into Tuesday night’s game. Even if you didn’t know anything about the Duke roster, you knew they had a future NBA lottery pick in Paolo Banchero. And after watching him dominate in front of a packed Madison Square Garden, fans likely left convinced he should be among the conversation for a top-three selection come the summer.

“He’s a very skilled player,” UK forward Jacob Toppin said of Banchero postgame. “Like, let’s not hide the fact that’s a good player. He’s 6-10, 250 (pounds) or whatever he is. It was a challenge.”

Toppin was actually the lone Kentucky player who had any success defending Banchero. Toppin’s length was able to bother Banchero on multiple occasions. Even then, with an array of scoring moves that include face-up mid-rangers and forceful drives to the bucket, the 6-foot-9 Banchero is a load to slow down.

All that being said, he wasn’t even Duke’s best player: Trevor Keels was the biggest, and most important, surprise of the night.

Also a five-star high school recruit, the 6-foot-5 Keels wasn’t as highly regarded as Banchero, but you wouldn’t have known it from his play against Kentucky.

Keels was playing more like a linebacker than a shooting guard, bullying any and every Wildcat that was standing in his path to the rim; Tshiebwe, Wheeler, TyTy Washington, Kellan Grady, you name it, Keels was going right at them and finishing through contact. Keels ended with a game-high 25 points on a 10-18 clip.

There are plenty of positives to take away from Kentucky’s loss to Duke. But through one game, it’s clear that Duke has two, go-to superstars, while the ‘Cats might not even have one. That’s the prize of recruiting the best high schoolers in the country though, and a big reason why Calipari has been hitting the recruiting trail so hard in recent months.

Kentucky’s veteran-led squad will likely be fine by March, but the impact of missing out on future NBA All-Stars has quickly shown its effect on the current state of the program.