Many believed last season was Jon Scheyer’s best shot at winning the big dance. The duo of Cooper Flagg and Kon Kneuppel — now sitting at No. 1 and No. 2 in the Rookie of the Year race — helped form one of the strongest Duke teams we’ve seen in years. Scheyer took Duke back to the Final Four for the first time since the 2021–22 season, but the wait for a championship in Durham, the first since 2015, continued. This year, though, with Cameron Boozer leading the charge, there’s a renewed sense of excitement around Duke once again.

When Cooper Flagg committed to Duke, everyone in the basketball world knew they were getting a guaranteed No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft. And he absolutely lived up to the hype, averaging 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists. He led Duke in all five major categories — points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks — something you almost never see replicated at the college level.

But somehow, Cameron Boozer is going toe-to-toe with the Maine native, and right now he’s the heavy favorite to win National Player of the Year. According to Kalshi, Boozer has a 67% chance to take home the award that Flagg took home last year.

Boozer is averaging a team-high 22.9 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 3.9 assists, and he recently put Duke on his back against defending champions, Florida, with 29 points, six rebounds, and two assists on 10-of-21 shooting. That outing capped a remarkable run in which he scored 90 points across three games — the most ever by a Duke freshman in a three-game span, according to ESPN.

Of course, performances like this are bound to generate buzz in the media. According to the KenPom Player of the Year standings, Boozer leads the race by a wide margin with a KPOY rating of 2.366. The next closest player is Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson, who sits at 1.567, showing just how dominant Boozer has been so far.

Nine games into the season, no one expected the gap to look this lopsided, especially with Purdue’s Braden Smith projected to be a major contender for NPOY. Smith was the Big Ten Player of the Year and is on track to win it again.

He’s one of the best playmakers in the nation and has a legitimate chance to break Bobby Hurley’s long-standing career assists record. But despite all that, his name has basically disappeared from the National Player of the Year conversation.

Of course, it’s still early in the season, and with conference play right around the corner, there are plenty of twists and turns still to come. But with Duke off to a 9–0 start, Cameron Boozer has a real chance to replicate what his dad did at Duke years ago and bring a championship back to Durham.

But Seth Davis doesn’t seem to think so…

Seth Davis Drops a Harsh Reality Check on Cameron Boozer’s Duke

Despite Cameron Boozer balling out every night and Duke already stacking three wins over ranked opponents in Kansas, Arkansas, and Florida, college basketball analyst and Hoops HQ editor-in-chief Seth Davis still isn’t convinced.

“We talk about UConn, but I think that Duke, as good as Cam Boozer is, it’s not a formula for long-term success,” Davis said on TNT Sports. “I mean, he had 29 again tonight. Caleb Foster played really well against Arkansas. He was a non-factor tonight. Isaiah Evans has been up and down… You can see the pieces are there for Duke. Now they’re winning these games. They beat Kansas without Darryn Peterson. So it’s good to learn these things while you’re winning, but I’m just telling you. As good as Cam Boozer is, may be the best player in the country. It’s not enough.”

This season’s Duke team doesn’t have a clear-cut No. 2 option the way last year’s squad did. Even then, the inexperience of their young stars was a major reason they couldn’t hold on to their lead against Houston in the Final Four. And this year, that could very well become an issue again. Building a roster around phenomenal freshman talent is exciting, but it isn’t always the formula for creating a championship team.

Will Seth Davis’ prediction come true, or will the nation’s fourth-ranked team defy the odds and bring a championship back to Duke for the first time since 2015? What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!