We’re going to start by acknowledging that it’s incredibly early in the college basketball season and Duke has only played two games. That doesn’t necessarily make the following question an unreasonable one: Can three Duke players average at least 20 points per game this season?

After wins over Kentucky and Army, freshman R.J. Barrett is averaging 28 points per game while his classmates Zion Williamson and Cam Reddish are averaging 27.5 and 23.5 points, respectively. Each player has scored at least 25 points in a game.

The former Loyola Marymount trio of Bo Kimble (35.3 ppg), the late Hank Gathers (29.0 ppg) and Jeff Fryer (22.7 ppg) were part of the Lions’ 1990 team that averaged an NCAA Division I-record 122.4 points per game and inspired the ESPN 30 for 30 film “Guru of Go.”

It’s a difficult bar for Duke’s freshmen to reach, but that’s potentially how special this group could be if it keeps pace with its first-week scoring averages for the next four months.

That era of Loyola Marymount teams put up point totals under coach Paul Westhead that may never be matched. In addition to its record-setting 1990 team, the Lions’ 1989 team ranks second in DI history in points per game (112.5) and the ’88 squad ranks fourth (110.3). Loyola Marymount holds five of the top 11 single-game scoring marks in DI history, including the record of 186 points against Alliant International in 1991.

But Duke’s 2018 recruiting class could also be unrivaled with arguably the top three prospects in the entire country playing for the same team.

Here’s the case for how Barrett, Williamson and Reddish could potentially average at least 20 points per game:

• Duke has a national-best 118 offensive rating, which would rank at worst in the top 15 – if not top 10 – nationally in most seasons. The Blue Devils are going to score a lot of points and they’ll do so efficiently.
• Reddish and Barrett are potentially already high-usage, high-percentage three-point shooters. Reddish is 10-for-21 (.476) and Barrett is 6-for-16 (.375) through two games.
• While we don’t know how often or how well Williamson will shoot from outside (1-for-2 through two games), he could finish among the national leaders in field goal percentage. He’s 21-for-25 (.840) from inside the arc.
• None of their teammates currently project to be both high-minute and high-usage players. Using kenpom.com’s shot percentage statistic, which tracks what percent of a team’s shots a player takes when he’s on the court, Barrett (36.7%), Reddish (33.7%) and Williamson (26.0%) are clearly Duke’s primary scoring options. Sophomore reserve Alex O’Connell ranks fourth on the team at 22.7 percent but he has played just 21 minutes in two games. In Duke’s win over Kentucky, Barrett took as many shots (26) as the rest of his non-Williamson/Reddish teammates attempted combined.
• The trio should do damage at the free throw line. Reddish is a perfect 7-for-7 at the line this season and he has had the best stroke of the three players through the first two games. Williamson and Barrett have drawn 8.4 and 6.2 fouls per 40 minutes thus far, suggesting that they’ll be able to get to the charity stripe with regularity.

 

It’ll be a historic achievement if even two of Duke’s three freshman stars are able to average at least 20 points this season. The Blue Devils haven’t had two players average at least 20 points in the same season since 1978, when Jim Spanarkel averaged 20.8 points per game and Mike Gminski averaged exactly 20.0 points per game.

Oklahoma, which is responsible for two of the five highest single-season point totals ever, hasn’t had two 20-point-per-game scorers in the same season since Stacey King and Mookie Blaylock in 1989.

It’s been even longer for Kentucky (1966), North Carolina (1966) and Indiana (1964).

Given the unique talent in Duke’s star trio and a potentially low-usage supporting cast, Barrett, Williamson and Reddish could chase scoring averages that no trio has matched since the highest-scoring offense in the history of the sport.