During the one-and-done era of his storied career, Mike Krzyzewski often lamented how his young teams were “set back” in 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 claiming an early double-digit lead.

It would have been all too easy for this Blue Devil squad to let the game get out of hand after that early haymaker from the No. 1 team in the country. In an eerily similar game in Scheyer’s first season, against a Purdue team that had similar experience and was led by a behemoth in the post, the Blue Devils were never truly competitive and lost by nearly 20 points. This season, Duke stayed in touch until their offense came together, once again putting themselves in position to win the game late.

Despite the outcome being another close loss, that difference is something that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Of course, Duke doesn’t compete for moral victories, and there are obvious concerns about the way this young team performed in the final minute — which are all the more serious given the similarities to the ending of the Blue Devils’ other loss to Kentucky. But the National Championships are won in March and April, not November, giving Duke more than three months to address these (and other) issues.

Lest we forget, freshmen grow the most over the course of a college basketball season, and Duke has three of them in its starting lineup. Cooper Flagg already showed growth in this game compared to against Kentucky: while his turnover on the final possession was all too familiar, Flagg’s shot selection was much improved over the course of the game, and he successfully adapted after two early possession. Kon Kneuppel could be on the same trajectory as Jared McCain last year: lost in McCain’s late-season explosion was that he also struggled early against top-ranked opponents, including scoring no points against Michigan State, 5 in a loss at Arkansas, and 6 (including 0-for-3 from beyond the arc) in a surprise loss at Georgia Tech. Kneuppel is arguably ahead of McCain’s curve, given his ability to impact the game when his shot isn’t falling, as evidenced by his 11 points against the Jayhawks despite going 0-for-8 from deep. Khaman Maluach, meanwhile, appears on the same trajectory as recent young Duke big men like Mark Williams and Dereck Lively, with every reason to believe that the version of Maluach we see in March will be very different from the one that managed just four points and one rebound against Kansas.

With this early season draft of its three key freshmen, Duke wasn’t quite good enough to beat Kansas or Kentucky, but it was also in position to do so if a single bounce or whistle would have gone the Blue Devils’ way. If these three freshmen evolve in March, similar matchups might not come down to one game.

We also can’t forget that this early-season gauntlet has historically been a challenge. Duke has lost single-possession games to two teams that should both be in strong contention for the No. 1 overall seed at the end of the non-conference slate. Such defeats are in stark contrast to those that occurred in the non-conference sessions last season, one at home and the other against an undersized Arkansas team in a game that was not nearly as close as the final score suggested . The same could be said of Duke’s non-conference losses two years ago, including the blowout at the hands of Purdue. That also ignores the immense quality of Duke’s win in Arizona, compared to the lower-quality non-conference wins in those two seasons, with another top-tier opportunity to play at home against Auburn next week.

Jon Scheyer chose this glove early in the season because he was less concerned about the Blue Devils’ early season record and more about their preparation for the NCAA tournament. When the tournament rolls around, Duke will undoubtedly have to play out a game where their shots aren’t falling early or the whistles seem to be against them. In November, the Blue Devils showed that they can take games like this, against teams of the highest quality, to the extreme. With three months to learn and grow, there’s every reason to believe they’ll be over that hurdle when such situations arise in March.