THE OPENING TIP
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- The regular season champion in the ACC, No. 9 Duke makes its 44th NCAA Tournament appearance when the Blue Devils battle Cal State Fullerton on Friday in a first-round game in Greenville, S.C.
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- The game tips at 7:10 p.m. ET on CBS with Jim Nantz, Bill Raftery and Grant Hill on the call. On the radio locally, David Shumate and John Roth call the action on the Blue Devil Sports Network from Learfield.
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- Duke enters the NCAA Tournament as the No. 2-seed in the West Region — the Blue Devils have been a top-two seed in 20 of their last 24 NCAA Tournament appearances since 1997.
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- The Blue Devils own the best winning percentage in NCAA Tournament history at .750 (114-38), while the program’s 114 wins rank third and five championships are fourth most.
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- The coach with the most wins in NCAA Tournament history (97-30), Mike Krzyzewski enters his NCAA-record 36th tournament. Coach K’s .764 tourney win percentage is second to only John Wooden (.825).
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- Duke and Cal State Fullerton have never met, and the Blue Devils are 4-0 all-time versus current members of the Big West Conference.
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- The Blue Devils are 13-3 away from Cameron Indoor Stadium and ended the season on an eight-game road winning streak — the longest active road winning streak by a power conference team.
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- The ACC Freshman of the Year, Paolo Banchero is averaging 17.0 points to rank second among all true freshmen nationally. He is sixth in the ACC in scoring and fifth in rebounding (7.8) — one of only three league players ranked top 10 in each category.
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- A third-team All-America selection from the Sporting News, Banchero is the program’s 75th All-American (52nd under Coach K).
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- Sophomore Mark Williams’ .707 field goal percentage is second on Duke’s single-season list. He would lead the nation, but falls just short of the minimum five field goals per game to qualify (4.8).
- Williams is the nation’s only player…