You'd have to figure that a team with 20 straight wins and a perfect conference mark has to be on the verge of setting a record or two.
Indeed, the top-ranked men's basketball team travels to Tallahassee tonight on the verge of setting both ACC and team records.
A win against Florida State would clinch Duke's sixth outright regular season title in the 1990s. No other ACC team has accomplished that feat.
The win would also match the team record of 21 straight single-season victories held by the 1986 Duke squad.
As they approach these marks, the Blue Devils (25-1, 13-0 in the ACC) have posted two of the more impressive performances of their season-a 100-54 pounding of Virginia and Saturday's 102-71 win against Wake Forest.
The Seminoles (12-12, 5-7), on the other hand, are not exactly playing their best basketball of the season. Florida State is on a three-game skid, including a 98-64 thrashing by North Carolina, a 110-108 double-overtime loss to Georgia Tech and a 78-45 loss to Clemson on Sunday.
FSU has now lost five of its last six, leaving coach Steve Robinson on edge and very nervous heading onto tonight's game.
"We lost a tough game in double overtime against Georgia Tech, and we just didn't seem to bounce back," he said yesterday. "Our reward is we get to play the No. 1 team in the country.... We have to play better than we did the last few games."
The Seminoles are facing increasing criticism for their untimely slump. After a surprisingly strong start, Florida State has fallen to 5-7 in the ACC. Sitting right at .500, the Seminoles now face an uphill battle to make the NCAA tournament, but Robinson is confident his team can bounce back.
"Nobody thought we would be where we are," he said. "We got off to that start and it raised everyone's expectations.... We just had a bad stretch. These are those same guys from the beginning."
To have any chance at beating the Blue Devils, Florida State will have to do a better job of controlling Elton Brand. In the first meeting between the two teams, Brand lit up the Seminoles for 27 points and 13 rebounds as Duke went on to win, 98-73.
The Seminoles must also contend with Trajan Langdon and Shane Battier, both of whom had extremely strong performances against Wake Forest, scoring 20 and 19 points, respectively.
But Florida State's not the only team making adjustments. Back in January, the Blue Devils had success in holding Ron Hale, the Seminoles' leading scorer, to only six points but struggled in other areas. The Blue Devils turned the ball over 19 times and allowed forward Damous Anderson to explode for 23 points.
This high number of turnovers is Mike Krzyzewski's leading concern entering the rematch.
"They played us well here and forced us into a number of turnovers," he said. "We hope we can do a better job of handling the ball in transition. We expect them to play us very well down there."
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