You already know his name. You’ve already heard the hype. You’ve already seen the highlights.

When RJ Barrett takes the court tonight with the Duke Blue Devils at the Champions Classic in Indianapolis to take on John Calipari’s Kentucky Wildcats, all eyes will be on the Mississauga, Ont., native. The RJ Barrett revolution, Gil Scott-Heron, will be televised. The heir apparent is to Steve Nash is here and it's his godson.

You can catch the No. 4 Duke Blue Devils vs. the No. 2 Kentucky Wildcats LIVE at 9:30pm et/6:30pm pt on TSN3, TSN Direct and streaming on TSN.ca.

Pardon the hyperbole, but Barrett might be the singular best talent that Canadian basketball has ever produced and the hype around the 18-year-old is warranted and unseen in Canadian sports circles for a non-hockey player.

The son of Canada Basketball stalwart Rowan Barrett, the younger Barrett announced his presence internationally at the 2015 FIBA Americas U16 in Argentina as Canada’s youngest player and led the team in scoring as Canada claimed a silver.

If 2015 was the year that Barrett arrived, it was in 2017 that he made himself at home. Barrett led Canada to its first-ever gold medal at the FIBA U-19 World Cup in Spain, including a dominant 38-point, 13-board performance against the United States in the semis, en route to being named the tournament MVP.

The hype train had left the station, but Barrett wanted to stay grounded.

“I’ve always wanted to be No. 1,” Barrett told TSN.ca at the time of his NBA Draft dreams. “But there’s a lot of basketball that’s going to come between now and then, so I’m just going to focus on the part in between.”

The in-between for Barrett started with finishing up high school at Montverde Academy in Florida ­– the same school that that produced NBA talents Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid and D’Angelo Russell, among others ­– and featured his debut for Canada’s senior team in June in Vancouver in two exhibition games against China where he dropped 16 and 21 points, respectively, and two FIBA World Cup qualifiers against the Dominican Republic and the Virgin Islands. Again the youngest player dressed, Barrett never looked remotely out of place.

“We put him into the starting lineup and he was out on the court with Dillon Brooks, Cory Joseph, Kelly Olynyk and Dwight Powell – four NBA players,” Canada head coach Jay Triano said of Barrett’s debut. “And we couldn’t really score until RJ said, ‘Okay, I need to score.’ He was the best player on the court for large segments of that game and that’s when you think these guys are NBA players and this is his first look on the national team. This kid is special.”

He now has the chance to show just how special he is in the next step in his “in-between” as he makes his regular-season debut for the storied Duke program under the tutelage of the legendary Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski, who heads into his 39th season at the helm of the Blue Devils.

Barrett chose Duke ahead of the Wildcats, Oregon and Michigan, all powerhouses in their own right, but in selecting what college to attend, it’s more than simply a decision about which program will put you in the best position to succeed and proceed to the NBA.

TSN is your home for NCAA basketball in Canada with coverage beginning on Tuesday night when the No. 10 Michigan State Spartans take on the No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks LIVE at 7pm et/4pm pt on TSN3, TSN Direct and streaming on TSN.ca. Click here for TSN's full NCAA schedule.

ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas was a member of Duke’s 1982 recruiting class and remembers what influenced his thinking when it came time to commit as a highly touted prospect out of Los Angeles.

“More so than the school, I was interested in the coach I was going to play for,” Bilas told TSN.ca “I kind of thought, even at that time, that that might be the only time in my basketball life that I got to choose who my coach was. Every other experience I had up until that point, I didn’t have any choice in the matter and I figured if I played after college, I wasn’t going to have any choice, either, so I took it pretty seriously.”

A four-year starter at Duke, Bilas would go on to reach the 1986 NCAA Title game – falling to Louisville – in his senior year. He later served as an assistant coach under Krzyzewski from 1990 to 1992, winning two national titles with teams featuring Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill. Bilas is intimately familiar with the man that Barrett has selected to help shepherd him into the pros.

“Behind closed doors, [people] would probably be surprised that he’s not always intense and fiery,” Bilas said of Krzyzewski. “He’s kinda soft-spoken and very funny and easy to be around. He’s just a fun person. He’s very driven, so when you’re in a competitive setting, there’s not a lot of BS, really. He doesn’t mess around when it’s time to fight. In other settings, though, he’s really fun and easy. He’s a very thoughtful person.”

Among the people around Coach K this season will be what is perhaps the most vaunted recruiting class in NCAA history. For the first time ever, the top three recruits committed to the same school. Alongside Barrett are the freakishly athletic Zion Williamson out of Spartanburg S.C. and Norristown, Pa’s Cameron Reddish, giving Krzyzewski an embarrassment of freshman riches. This is to say nothing of highly regarded point guard Tre Jones, another top-20 recruit, and Joey Baker, the No 41. recruit, who are also Duke first-years.

In the past, a recruiting class like this would have signalled four years of title contention for the Blue Devils, but this is the one-and-done era when it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that players stick around for their junior and senior years. These days, even getting a sophomore year out of a top recruit is a small victory. To wit, over the past five NBA drafts, 33 of the 50 players taken in the top-10 were selected following their freshman years. Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky (No. 9 in 2015) and Buddy Hield (No. 6 in 2016) of Oklahoma were the lone seniors taken in the top-10 during that period.

“It’s changed things for everybody,” Bilas said of one-and-dones. “If you recruit the best players, they’re gonna leave. And if they don’t leave after one year, they’ll leave after two. It’s not the same as it was. Players couldn’t leave 20, 30 years ago. That wasn’t the norm. It’s the norm now and so you have to deal with it. And the question is, do you turn your back on those players and recruit sort of the second tier or players that you think will stick around? But then some of them don’t anyway because they get really good. You just don’t know, so you have to deal with the landscape in front of you.”

While the dynamics might have changed, bringing in elite prospects is nothing new for Krzyzewski. In nearly four decades, Coach K is responsible for the likes of Kyrie Irving, Shane Battier and J.J. Redick’s ascendancy to the NBA, so he’s more than ready to make it work with guys who are used to being the sole focal points of their teams, now asked to share that responsibility.

Bilas believes the selflessness of this current crop of Blue Devils bodes well for cohesion.

“I’ve seen these guys play and the first thing that stands out about them – outside of their talent, which is considerable – is that they’re easy to get along with and easy to play with,” Bilas said. “They share, so that won’t be a problem for these guys. They may lose games, but they’re not going to lose games because they’re selfish. That’s not going to happen.”

The Blue Devils head into the season as the No. 4 team in the country and the top team in the ACC, but the top-25 is littered with teams from the conference. Tony Bennett has turned the Hoos into a perennial contender and his Virginia team is at No. 5, while archrivals UNC come in at No. 8. Virginia Tech, Syracuse and Florida State slot in from 15 to 17 and Clemson is No. 22. Once again, the conference should be a dogfight.

“The league is tough every year,” Bilas said. “There’s never a year where you go, ‘Boy, the ACC sucks this year.’ That never happens, so whether it’s Virginia Tech or NC State or whatever with Duke and North Carolina – and now Virginia – there are going to be other good teams. Notre Dame won the league a few years ago. Clemson was a Sweet 16 team last year. You got great teams, so how quickly they mature together is going to be the biggest barometer of how they do in the regular season. And a lot of it, though, is preparation for the end.”

For Bilas, the team that emerges atop the ACC will be its best road warriors.

“Duke is the most talented, one to five – their first five has the most talent in the league,” Bilas said. “The separating factor will be how they are one to eight and how that stacks up against the rest of the league. Some other teams are a little bit more experienced and that, oftentimes, can show up on the road. But Duke is going to win 30 games. It’s just a question of are they going to win against Carolina or on the road against Virginia...that’s the difference between winning a regular-season conference title is how you do on the road.”

Considering the level of skill on this Blue Devils squad, it’s gotta be title or bust, no?

“People say that, but I don’t know who believes that,” Bilas said. “They probably said that last year. They had the No. 1 recruiting class last year and [departing senior] Grayson Allen, a national player of the year candidate, so title or bust, but they still won 29 games and were one bucket away from the Final Four. They had a great year. I don’t know any team that has that expectation. They have that goal, but anyone that says title or bust, I’m not sure has thought through the competitive aspect of this. Because that says the journey is only dependent on a single outcome and I don’t believe that.”

The journey for Barrett and the rest of the Blue Devils will, hopefully, continue onto the pros. Whether or not that means entering the 2019 NBA Draft remains to be seen, but Triano believes that Barrett’s assertiveness is already at the level required for pro success.

“He’s not afraid of anything,” Triano said. “He’s not passive. I talk to Coach K quite a bit and the one thing he said is, ‘Jay, I think he’s got that dog in him.’ And I said absolutely. He’s got that alpha dog. He’s got it in his mind that I can be great. I can take over and he has so far. I’m super excited for him and what he’s going to become.”

But while he’s already tremendously skilled, there are always things that be honed in young players. Barrett is from the finished product at this point in his development. His shot still needs work.

“He can make shots and he’s got a good stroke, but he needs to become a more efficient and consistent perimeter shooter where that [becomes] a strength and a weapon for him because he does everything else at such a high level,” Bilas said. “And it’s not that he can’t shoot. He can, but that’s not the first strength of his. If he can improve that, he becomes a nearly unstoppable offensive player.”

Because of that, Bilas gives Barrett the edge among Duke’s Big 3 when it comes to who projects as the best pro right now.

“Zion Williamson is going to be a Shaquille O’Neal-type personality in the league and in college, too,” Bilas said. “People are really going to get a look at him early. I mean, he’s incredibly well-known now and is one of the most well-known players to come into college in a long time, but that’s going to skyrocket when people see what he does in games. It’s going to take off and he’ll be the most-watched player this year by far.

“But all of them are going to be really good. I’d still say Barrett with his overall skill set and the fact that he [can play] guard with his size, his ability to score and play in transition, his length. He’s got everything.”

Still, we’ve seen countless examples over the years of players whose prodigious talents never translated into success or longevity when it comes to the professional game.

Triano is convinced that won’t be the case with Barrett because of how much basketball means to him.

“RJ loves the game. How much you love the game, I think, is a big factor,” Triano said. “Like do you love to play? [Former Toronto Raptors guard and assistant coach] Alvin Williams and I would always have this conversation. He told me one time that the guys [he] would want to play with are the ones who, if the NBA stopped tomorrow – no more salaries, no more anything – who would go to the Y[MCA] and play. I could look at my team right now and say I know eight guys who would never play again. They’re doing it because they’re professionals. But the guys who would go there just to play pick-up ball for fun, those are the guys you want to play with.”

Barrett’s first opportunity to show he is one of those guys comes on Tuesday night.

It probably won’t be the last.