This Duke team is different.

In the abstract, that’s true because eight of the 10 players who have been in the rotation were not at Duke last season.

Digging deeper, it remains true. The intangibles — mainly, toughness — of the Blue Devils stand out compared to Jon Scheyer’s first two teams. It is an elite defensive team that is also an elite shooting team, combining two of the best traits of Scheyer’s first two seasons.

And now, riding a 15-game winning streak and having eviscerated North Carolina on Saturday night, there comes another chance for this Duke team to prove how different it is.

“There’s a long way to go but we just feel we have a big mission, a deeper purpose, and that’s one of the things we’ve talked about is just the process,” Scheyer said. “It’s not about the results. We don’t coach the results, we coach, ‘Did we do what our intention initially was?’”

Duke’s intention heading into Wednesday night’s game at Syracuse involves following up an emotional win with a trend-breaking one.

In each of the last four seasons, the team that has won the first Duke-UNC game has lost its next game.

Those have been split, two of them Duke (2022-23) and two of them UNC (2021 and ’24). It’s worth noting that Duke’s losses came in Monday night games.

Between a 15-game winning streak and Saturday night’s emphatic victory, though, the Blue Devils are tasked with staving off complacency. It’s a symptom of winning that coaches are forever guarding against.

“As a coach, you’re constantly worried about outside distractions, noise,” Scheyer said. “We’re battling against it all the time and our group has done an amazing job staying locked in and focused. Obviously, that needs to continue.”

Junior guard Tyrese Proctor wasn’t interested in making Saturday night’s win out to be more than it was — while dropping one reference to the catharsis that comes with beating the Tar Heels.

“It counts as one win,” Proctor said. “Obviously it feels good beating them but at the end of the day, we’ve got 11 (ACC) wins and we’ve just got to keep going.”

That’s what brings it back to this being a different type of team.

Duke starts three freshmen and relies on two others off the bench. Proctor is seen as a veteran and the junior has played in big games, while still noting he reclassified to Duke and came a year early.

“Their maturity with embracing coaching all the time, and then also with their hunger to do something special has been unique,” Scheyer said. “I give all of them credit for that.

“And then the other thing that’s really important is the fact that they’ve just thrown themselves into the moment. They’re not getting ahead of themselves. That’s unique.”

Here’s what to know ahead of Wednesday night’s game:

Time: 7 p.m.

Location: JMA Wireless Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.

TV: ESPN2.

Series; last meeting: Duke leads 16-6 and has won nine straight meetings; Duke won 86-66 in Durham in last season’s only meeting. Current Blue Devil Maliq Brown scored a career-high 26 points for the Orange.

Records: Duke 19-2, 11-0 ACC; Syracuse 10-12, 4-7.

Stat to watch: 19.0%.

That is Syracuse’s turnover rate in ACC games, which is the worst in the league (per KenPom and entering Tuesday night’s games).

The Orange’s turnover clip for the season isn’t great (17.7%, 207th nationally). But it ticks up when looking at ACC-only games. Even in a 75-66 win at California on Saturday, Syracuse committed 13 turnovers in a 66-possession game (19.7%). In losses to Stanford and Clemson in the last couple of weeks, 14 turnovers in each game meant the Orange’s turnover clip was over 20%.

As strong as Duke’s defense has been, the Blue Devils don’t force many turnovers. For the season, Duke’s defensive turnover rate is 18.0%, which is 138th; in ACC games, it’s 16.0%, which is 10th in the league.

But …

Duke forced 14 turnovers against UNC on Saturday night. So, with it being a 65-possession game, that was a turnover rate of 21.5% — Duke’s second-best clip of the season against an ACC team (Louisville was 22.3%).

Forcing turnovers against the Tar Heels led to several early fast breaks and layups; doing the same against Syracuse would lead to more easy offense for the Blue Devils.

Matchup to watch: Duke’s centers vs. Syracuse’s Eddie Lampkin Jr. (No. 44).

It’s another matchup against a ground-and-pound ACC center.

Khaman Maluach and Brown — plus Patrick Ngongba II, maybe if only for a couple of minutes — will be tasked with slowing down Lampkin.

Syracuse’s big man is 6-11, 265. He’s a load on the inside, a skilled passer out of double teams (2.4 assists per game), and one of the best rebounders in the ACC (10.5 in league games is second-best, behind Stanford’s Maxime Raynaud).

A few games ago, another of the ACC’s wide-bodied centers had a decent game against the Blue Devils — albeit when they were without Brown. Boston College’s Chad Venning (6-9, 270) had 19 points on 7-for-11 shooting, along with three rebounds and three blocks.

Lampkin isn’t quite the scorer Venning is, but could cause some of the same problems.

Orange(man) to watch: Guard J.J. Starling (No. 2).

The one-time Duke target on the recruiting trail hasn’t fared well either of the times he’s faced the Blue Devils.

Starling had nine points on 4-for-13 shooting against Duke for Notre Dame as a freshman, and then had nine points on 4-for-9 shooting last season with Syracuse.

Aside from the month that he missed because of an injury, Starling has been a bright spot for the Orange. He’s averaging 17.9 points per game and is the primary ball-handler. His shooting splits could be better (42.9% field goals, 29.8% 3-pointers, 70.2% free-throws) but he’s never been known as a shooter.

Starling is coming off one of his more complete games of the season. Against Cal, he had 18 points, five rebounds, four assists and didn’t commit a turnover. He still shot 6-for-18, but it was only his second game of the season (out of 15) in which he didn’t have a turnover.

Blue Devil to watch: Center Maliq Brown (No. 6).

He scored a career-high 26 points for Syracuse, against Duke, last season; he’s scored 39 points in 16 games this season. Brown scored in double figures 17 times last year for the Orange; his season-high this year is eight points.

Brown returns to the place where he spent the first two seasons of his career with a different role. But he has been the same type of havoc-inducing defender for Duke, which also doesn’t need him to have as much of a scoring role as Syracuse did last season.

“Some of the things you see, he performed that way for us. The difference is who he’s with and the playing time for him,” Syracuse coach Adrian Autry said earlier this week. “When he wanted to go into the portal, we were very disappointed.”

What’s on deck: Duke has perhaps its toughest remaining ACC game coming up this weekend.

The Blue Devils go to Clemson on Saturday night. Duke has a one-game lead on Clemson in the ACC standings, as the Tigers’ only league loss came at Louisville about one month ago. The Tigers have won six straight games since that loss, four of those coming on the road, and five of them by double digits.

Syracuse plays host to Boston College on Saturday.

KenPom prediction: Duke wins 81-63.

Injury report: Duke is whole again, thanks to the return of Brown over the weekend. There are no other obvious or significant injuries for the Blue Devils.

Syracuse has had some bad injury luck this season.

The Orange is currently without freshman Donnie Freeman. The 6-9, 205-pound freshman is averaging 13.4 points and 7.9 rebounds per game, both second on the team. But he has missed Syracuse’s last eight games with a right leg injury.

Autry said on Monday that the time is nearing for Syracuse’s staff and Freeman to determine if he’ll attempt to play again this season.

The Orange also went all of December without Starling; he returned in January and has been healthy, though.

What a Duke loss looks like: One way this becomes a loss stands out more than anything to do with X’s and O’s.

An emotional hangover could cost the Blue Devils.

As it says above, winning the first Duke-UNC game of the season has meant a loss in the next game for four straight seasons. There are signs and confidence from Duke’s players and staff that this season’s team is different, and it feels that way; but we won’t know if that’s really the case until sometime during Wednesday night’s game.

Also on the emotional spectrum of a potential loss would be Duke looking ahead to its weekend matchup at Clemson.

What a Duke win looks like: Taking this in the opposite direction, a Duke win would show us a mature team — or, it’d reiterate that, given it’s February and the Blue Devils have done a lot already to prove their maturity.

In a basketball sense, Duke is a mismatch for Syracuse. The Blue Devils’ offensive output against a semi-decent UNC defense was impressive; Syracuse has hardly proven itself to be a good defensive team. After shooting a combined 13-for-52 (25%) on 3-pointers against Wake Forest and N.C. State, Duke was 10-for-20 against UNC.

Duke’s defense is elite and will be the best Syracuse has seen this season.