Sportswrap is your one-stop shop for everything Duke athletics, where we’ll recap how each of Duke’s sports currently in competition performed over the last week and give a brief look ahead. Here’s our recap for the week of Nov. 27-Dec. 3:
Football
Duke has discovered its bowl placement, and the Blue Devils are heading down to Alabama to take on Troy in the Birmingham Bowl Dec. 23. The Trojans are coming off their second-straight Sun Belt championship, defeating Appalachian State 49-23 to improve to 11-2 on the season. However, the team’s fortunes are up in the air with the growing number of transfer portal entrants announced this week, including star quarterback Riley Leonard and numerous members of a vaunted secondary, as well as a still-vacant head coaching seat. For now, Blue Devil fans are in wait-and-see mode to find out who will lead the program next. -Caleb Dudley
Men’s basketball
Two road games, two losses. Head coach Jon Scheyer and his seventh-ranked squad had their worst week imaginable, dropping both its ACC/SEC Challenge matchup at Arkansas 80-75, and its conference opener at Georgia Tech 72-68. Senior captain Jeremy Roach led both late comeback attempts, topping 20 points in both contests. However unexpected the losses — Duke is now 5-3, 0-1 in the ACC — the results were overshadowed when sophomore point guard Tyrese Proctor went down early in Atlanta, clutching his ankle. He did not return, and Scheyer said that he would receive an X-ray. There has not yet been an update on the injury or his status for Saturday’s game against Charlotte. -Rachael Kaplan
Women’s basketball
It was a rough end of the week for the Blue Devils, who fell Sunday in a 77-61 heartbreaker to South Carolina. While the group opened its week with a 72-65 road win against Georgia in overtime Thursday evening, it was the second game that really jumped out on the schedule this week. Duke (5-3) managed to hang with the Gamecocks up until the final five minutes, but after center Kennedy Brown fouled out things quickly got out of hand. Gamecock center Kamilla Cardoso took over, dominating in the post and quickly extending the lead out of striking distance. Now, the Blue Devils must bounce back coming into a week off before returning to play Thursday at Clemson. -Martin Heintzelman
Track and field
Track is back. Fresh off of a ninth-place place finish at cross country nationals last month, junior distance star Amina Maatoug broke her own school record for 3000m indoors at the Sharon Colyear-Danville season opener in Boston. Her time of 8:46.89 was good for third in a stacked field of pros and NCAA champions, and registers as seventh all-time collegiately in the event. Back home in Morris Williams stadium, the rest of the team competed in the intrasquad Blue-White scrimmage, a first test of their fall training block. The Blue team beat the White team, but soon they will all compete as one as the Blue Devils travel next to Winston-Salem, N.C., for the JDL Mondo College Invitational Jan. 13, the first of a potential 21 meets in their 2024 indoor and outdoor campaigns. -Prithvi Kotapati
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