Duke basketball ranked 4th in first AP Poll

The first AP Poll of the college basketball season was released Friday, and the Blue Devils once again found themselves near the top of the list.

Duke will begin the season ranked No. 4 in the country, behind top-ranked Kentucky, Arizona and Wisconsin. The Blue Devils had previously been pegged No. 3 by the USA Today Coaches Poll—just ahead of the fourth-ranked Badgers—last week. Duke and Wisconsin will meet Dec. 3 in Madison, Wisc., in a highly-anticipated showdown in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

The ACC was well-represented with five ranked teams—the most of any conference—and especially concentrated at the top of the poll, as North Carolina, Louisville and Virginia all cracked the top 10. In addition to its showdown with the Badgers in December, Duke will play its traditional home-and-home with the No. 6 Tar Heels and must travel to tough road environments to take on the No. 8 Cardinals and No. 9 Cavaliers.

For the second consecutive year, head coach Mike Krzyzewski's team will be heavily reliant on newcomers, headlined by No. 1 overall recruit and preseaseon ACC Rookie of the Year Jahlil Okafor. The Chicago native will have his toughness tested throughout nonconference and conference play, as the Blue Devils will play nine games this season against teams ranked in Friday's poll.

Syracuse was the fifth and final member of the ACC in the poll, slated at No. 23 as Jim Boeheim's squad looks to overcome the losses of Tyler Ennis, C.J. Fair and Jerami Grant.

In addition to Wisconsin, Duke plays two more highly-anticipated nonconference games, the first of which comes in the third game of the season against No. 18 Michigan State in the Champions Classic in Indianapolis Nov. 18. A month later, the Blue Devils will meet defending national champion Connecticut—which opens the season ranked 17th—in another neutral-site game at the IZOD Center in New Jersey.