Last season, Duke basketball didn't play a game at Madison Square Garden for the first time since the 2001-02 season. Rest easy New Yorkers: the Blue Devils will be back next season.
Duke will play in next season's NIT Season Tip-Off at Madison Square Garden during Thanksgiving weekend, senior associate director of athletics Mike Cragg confirmed to The Chronicle.
A tournament that began in 1985, the first two rounds take place at campus locations before moving to The World's Most Famous Arena for the semifinals and finals.
The other host schools besides Duke will be Arizona, Alabama and Rutgers. The other programs competing have yet to be confirmed.
The last time the Blue Devils played in the NIT Season Tip-Off? Their 2009-10 national championship season, when they beat Connecticut in the finals to take home the crown.
The past two years, the Blue Devils have traveled great distances for their Thanksgiving-weekend tournaments. In 2011-12, they beat Kansas in the Maui Invitational in Hawaii, and this past season they beat eventual-national champion Louisville in the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas.
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