Duke Basketball Responds to 'Wake-Up Call' in Weight Room

Next spring, Duke basketball might view last season's loss to Tennessee as its blessing in disguise.

Rewind to March 18. In addition to Tennessee exhibiting more tenacity and toughness than the Blue Devils in the 2022-23 Duke basketball team's season-ending NCAA Tournament Round of 32 defeat, the Volunteers outmuscled Jon Scheyer's debut young bunch, albeit getting away with some unnecessary roughness in the process.

Now, judging by a couple of tweets on Saturday and the recently revealed gains in returning Duke players' weights on next season's roster, the program refuses to forget how that too-early March Madness exit in Orlando, Fla., went down. The Blue Devils look determined to correct the weakness this summer.

First, here is the one-minute hype video from the weight room that Duke basketball's social media crew released on Saturday afternoon:

turn us up 🔋 🔋 🔋 🔋 🔋 pic.twitter.com/gAdmjlGd5G

— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) July 1, 2023

Minutes later, Unleashed Potential player development guru and decades-long Duke basketball camp contributor Joe Stasyszyn tweeted his findings after spending the past week in Durham around the noticeably spirited second batch of Blue Devils under Scheyer's command.

According to Stasyszyn, Will Stephens, the program's head sports performance coach, told him that the 2023-24 Duke team looks back at the Tennessee game as a "wake-up call":

Just spent a week at Duke 🏀! @DukeMBB Spoke to Strength Coach Will Stephens! Extra Motivation‼️ He said Tennessee Game in the NCAA Tourn. last season was a wake up call! Tennessee’s Game Plan was to be more physical than Duke!! Players are committed to being bigger & Stronger! https://t.co/pyyyapAnHi

— Joe Stasyszyn (@coachs717) July 1, 2023

The above evidence supports that ACC Rookie of the Year Kyle Filipowski, who took the brunt of the cheap shots in Orlando and pretty much all season long, has added 18 pounds to boast his reported 7-foot, 248-pound frame.

And there's a similar story with intriguing returning sophomore Christian Reeves' reported 16-pound increase into a 7-foot-1, 261-pound giant.

That's not to mention returning guards Jeremy Roach, Tyrese Proctor, and Jaden Schutt each show at least a five-pound bump. Moreover, returning sophomore Mark Mitchell has reportedly grown 12 pounds and one inch into a 6-foot-9, 232-pound versatile threat.

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Top all that off with the observation that the four incoming five-star freshmen, who arrived on campus a few weeks ago, might already be at least a tad stouter than in their high school mixtapes.

In other words, these aren't your 2022-23 Blue Devils, despite the return of eight scholarship players, including four starters.

No, this group, projected to sit near the top of the preseason AP Top 25, is collectively older and more imposing, with a better grasp of what it takes to survive against physical foes when a season's life is on the line.

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