During the “one-and-done” era of his legendary career, Mike Krzyzewski often complained that his young teams were “set back” by early-season losses to more experienced and physical teams. That’s a fair assessment of what happened to this Duke team, now led by Jon Scheyer, against Kansas in Las Vegas, with the veteran Jayhawks quickly jumping out to a double-digit lead.

It would have been all too easy for this Blue Devil squad to let the contest spiral out of control after the No. 1 team in the country caused an early upset. In an eerily similar contest in Scheyer’s first season against a Purdue team that was similarly experienced and led by a giant in the post, the Blue Devils were never really competitive and lost by nearly 20 points. This season, Duke stayed in touch until their offense came together and once again managed to win the game late.

Even though the result was another narrow defeat, this difference should not be overlooked.

Of course, Duke isn’t looking for moral victories, and there are clear concerns about this young team’s performance in the final minute – made all the more serious considering the similarities to the end of the Blue Devils’ other loss to Kentucky. However, national championships are won in March and April, not November, giving Duke more than three months to address these (and other) issues.

Let’s not forget that freshmen tend to grow the most over the course of a college basketball season, and Duke has three of them in the starting lineup. Cooper Flagg already showed improvement in this contest compared to Kentucky: While his turnovers on the final possession were all too familiar, Flagg’s shot selection improved significantly as the game progressed and he successfully adjusted after two early turnovers. Kon Kneuppel may be on the same path as Jared McCain last year: McCain’s explosive late-season surge meant he, too, struggled early against top opponents, including failing to score points against 5th-seeded Michigan State in a loss at Arkansas and 6 ((including 0-3 from distance) in a surprising loss at Georgia Tech. Kneuppel is arguably ahead of McCain considering his ability to impact the game if his shot isn’t there is falling, as evidenced by his 11 points against the Jayhawks despite an 0-8 mark from deep, meanwhile, Khaman Maluach appears to be on the same trajectory as recent young Duke big men like Mark Williams and Dereck Lively, and there is There is every reason to believe that the version of Maluach we see in March will be very different from the version that only scored four points and a rebound against Kansas.

With this early-season version of these three key freshmen, Duke wasn’t quite good enough to beat Kansas or Kentucky — but it was also capable of doing so if a single bounce or whistle had gotten in the way of the Blue Devils . If these three rookies continue to develop in March, similar contests may not come down to a single game.

It should also be remembered that this gauntlet represents a historic challenge at the start of the season. Duke has lost games by one possession against two teams that both look to be in strong contention for first place in the standings at the bottom of the non-conference slate. Such defeats are a far cry from last season’s early non-conference defeats, one at home and the other against an underperforming Arkansas team in a contest that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score suggested. The same goes for Duke’s non-conference losses two years ago, which included a loss at the hands of Purdue. That also ignores the tremendous quality of Duke’s win at Arizona compared to the substandard non-conference victories in those two seasons, with another high-profile opportunity coming up against Auburn at home next week.

Jon Scheyer chose to run this gauntlet early in the season because he was less worried about the Blue Devils’ early-season record and more concerned with preparing them for the NCAA Tournament. Come tournament time, Duke will undoubtedly need to play a game in which their shots don’t fall too early or the whistles don’t seem to go against them. In November, the Blue Devils showed that they can hold on to such games until the end against teams of the highest quality. With three months to learn and grow, there’s every reason to believe they’ve overcome that hurdle when situations like this arise in March.