The calendar has officially turned to November, which means the college basketball season is right around the corner. With Mike Krzyzewski’s coaching career coming to an end at the conclusion of this season, Duke fans should need no explanation of the importance and urgency around the program this year. But for this team to send the legendary coach off with one last championship, they’ll have plenty of work to do. While Duke has one of their most talented teams of recent memory in tow, multiple other schools boast strong rosters this season as well. Most preseason prognostications have Duke slated around the 9-10 range, which may disappoint some Blue Devil fans, but this is more to do with the strength of college basketball than it is any slight of this year’s Duke team. On the bright side, the 2009-10 championship team was ranked around the same position before the season began. This is a team that is very capable of being the last one standing in April. Save Duke Basketball is back after a long offseason to break it all down!
Note: All pictures from GoDuke unless otherwise noted.
Returning Players:
This season, Duke returns 40.1% of minutes played and 37.1% of points scored from the 2020-21 team that failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. While that may not seem like a substantial number – obviously, other preseason contenders have higher numbers – 37.1% of points scored is the highest number the Blue Devils have returned since the 2016-17 team that was the consensus preseason #1 team. No one in this year’s returning crop has the stature of a Grayson Allen or a Luke Kennard, or even the experience of an Amile Jefferson or a Matt Jones. Hell, even counting the graduate transfers, the members of this roster have a combined 24 minutes of NCAA Tournament experience between them. But these are the guys that will matter in March. You can't win a championship with just a slew of young freshmen and no upperclassmen to complement them. These four returnees will all need to take a leap forward for Duke to reach its ceiling as a team.
F Wendell Moore
2020-21 Stats: 9.7 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 2.7 APG
While Moore’s sophomore season still contained plenty of frustrating moments for Duke fans, there was notable improvement from his freshman year that shouldn’t be taken lightly. After an abysmal four-game stretch in December where he scored a combined six points, he matched a career high of 25 points against Boston College in a game Duke would’ve lost had he scored any less. Wendell then went on to average 11.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 3.1 assists the remainder of the season. His three-point shot improved immensely both in accuracy (21.1% to 30.1%) and in volume (1.3 attempts per 40 minutes to 4.4), and his free throw percentage (84.8% as a sophomore) would indicate that there’s still room for improvement from behind the arc as well. His turnover rate dropped from 24.7% to 17.4%, but he still needs to be more careful with the ball in his hands. Duke will rely on him as a ballhandler and playmaker yet again in 2021-22, and he may even see significant playing time at point guard.
Despite all these positives, there were plenty of negatives for Moore last season as well. Even if you remove the first five games of the season from consideration, Duke was still a better team with Moore on the bench last season, both offensively and defensively. The latter may come as a surprise as he’s regarded as one of Duke’s better defensive options on the perimeter, but Duke was roughly four points better defensively per 100 possessions with him on the bench, and that’s tough to ignore. Now entering his third season in Durham, Moore is going to be relied upon heavily in the backcourt again. He was recently named a team captain and he’s been voted Preseason All-ACC Second Team for the second consecutive season. With all the chaos of last season, it’s easy to forgive Moore for not making the leap that many expected as a sophomore, but now it really counts. Wendell is one of the biggest X-factors of this year’s Duke team, and whether he ascends as an upperclassman will play a big part in shaping the 2021-22 Blue Devils.
G Jeremy Roach
2020-21 Stats: 8.7 PPG, 2.2 RPG, 2.8 APG
Roach was handed the keys to the Duke offense in his freshman season, and to say the results were disappointing would be an understatement. His jump shot was maddeningly inconsistent, his distribution left much to be desired, he turned the ball over on almost 20% of his offensive possessions, and he was by far the team’s worst perimeter defender. Consistency was one of his biggest issues. After a six-game stretch where he averaged 14.0 points per game in December/January, he followed it up with two consecutive scoreless outings. In the late season three-game losing streak that doomed Duke’s at-large NCAA tournament hopes, Roach averaged just 5.3 points and 2.0 assists per game on 33.3% shooting. The on-off offensive numbers for the entire season were very favorable towards him considering he was mostly juxtaposed with the offensively-challenged Jordan Goldwire, but the eye test told the story of somebody who really struggled in his first season of college basketball. Such is the life of a freshman point guard in a power conference that isn’t a slam dunk pro prospect.
With a full year under his belt, the Blue Devils are counting on Roach to take a major step forward this season. For all his struggles and inconsistencies last season, he started 18 of 24 games and Coach K never pulled him out of the rotation entirely. He was named to the 2022 Bob Cousy Award (best point guard in America) watch list and he’ll have to play near that level for Duke to be as good as the most ambitious predictors could hope. He’s reuniting with his high school teammate, Trevor Keels, this season, which should give Roach an extra level of comfort running the offensive this season. Between he and Moore, Duke’s point guard play is the team’s biggest question mark heading into the 2021-22 campaign. If neither can seize the position and improve upon one of the team’s biggest weaknesses from a year ago, this team has zero chance of sending Coach K off with a sixth championship trophy.
C Mark Williams
2020-21 Stats: 7.1 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 1.4 BPG
Of all Duke’s returnees, Williams undoubtedly is the one with the most excitement around him. After his permanent insertion into the starting lineup last season, Williams averaged 12.0 points. 6.5 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks per game in just 23.2 minutes over an 11-game sample size. He ended the season on his highest note, logging 23 points and 19 rebounds in the ACC Tournament tilt against Louisville before Duke’s season was abruptly ended due to COVID-19. Trust me, many took notice of Williams’ emergence towards the end of last season, but Mark decided to return to Durham for his sophomore year. He’ll have a good chance of being a first-round NBA draft pick in 2022, but that can wait. For right now, he joins Moore on the Preseason All-ACC Second Team, and he’ll have to prove that the impact he had on the team’s stretch run last season can be reproduced over an entire season.
Williams will be the defensive anchor of this year’s Duke team – there’s an argument that he may be Duke’s best shot blocker since Shelden Williams – and how Duke sets up their system around him will be a major storyline to monitor throughout the season. We have seen repeatedly how Coach K prefers his defenses to play, but that over-aggressive style will not work with a center like Williams on the court. He’s at his best when he’s around the rim blocking/altering shots, and Duke needs to play a style that will allow him to do so. In 2017-18, Duke’s defensive and season outlook changed when Krzyzewski switched to a 2-3 zone and allowed Wendell Carter to protect the rim. I’m not suggesting he goes full-Boeheim again this season, but he needs to allow Williams to do what he does best rather than dragging him away from the basket and doing the opposing offenses' jobs for them.
Offensively, Williams was efficient around the basket and helped create second chance opportunities for the Blue Devils, but he was still not a positive for Duke according to on-off splits. This often is the price to pay when you sacrifice floor spacing for defense, but it is worth nothing that his offensive impact was around neutral from the first North Carolina game (when he was inserted into the starting lineup permanently) onward. Improving his free throw percentage (53.3%) would only help matters for Williams, and a full off-season in the Duke strength and conditioning program should also go a long way. He only played 350 minutes last season, but the list of guys who played at least that many minutes with a player efficiency rating of over 30 is as follows: Zion Williamson, Vernon Carey Jr., Jahlil Okafor, Marvin Bagley III, and Mark Williams. That’s some good company to be in.
F Joey Baker
2020-21 Stats: 2.9 PPG, 1.2 RPG, 0.4 APG
Baker’s junior campaign was plagued by his inability to consistently hit perimeter jumpers, but the rest of his offensive game did him no favors either. His struggles resulted in very sporadic playing time, but he was one of the few positive impact defensive players in the rotation last year. While he may miss a defensive rotation from time to time, there’s no denying the energy and communication he brings onto the court, two things that are paramount for a great defensive unit. Now entering his senior season, Baker is a team captain and he’s going to be one of the main sources of leadership on the team this year. What role he’ll play in the rotation will again come down to whether his three-point shot is falling, but there will be games where the Blue Devils will need him to hit a couple. After such an up-and-down first three seasons, it’d be a welcome sight to see Baker get his vindication in what could be his final season in Durham.
Newcomers:
Once again, Duke has brought in a recruiting class that rivals the best in the country. Even as Coach K is ready to ride off into the sunset, it doesn’t appear that coach-in-waiting Jon Scheyer has any intentions of slowing down the recruiting roll Duke has been on for the past decade. For 2021, Duke is bringing in a four-man class, three of which who should be instant impact players on this year’s team. While Duke’s chances this season will be significantly impacted by those who return, the freshmen will once again be the center of attention. On top of that, the Blue Devils also welcome two graduate transfers who figure to play a role in the frontcourt.
F Paolo Banchero
#1 PF/#4 Overall (ESPN), #1 PF/#2 Overall (247 Sports)
Simply put, Paolo Banchero is Duke’s best, and most-hyped, prospect since Zion Williamson. Everything about this kid points to him being an absolute beast at the college level and beyond. Standing 6’10” and 250 pounds, Banchero’s 41-inch vertical leap seems almost impossible for a player his size. That combination of size and athleticism is rarely seen, and he has the skill level to match it. He can score from all three levels, and even can bring the ball up the court. He will garner serious consideration for the #1 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft and will be Duke's best player in Coach K’s final season at the helm. According to Vegas Insider, Paolo has the second-shortest odds to win the 2022 Wooden Award behind Gonzaga’s Drew Timme, who Duke will square off against on November 26th in Las Vegas. If Banchero lives up to the hype, the sky is the limit for this year's team.
F AJ Griffin
#6 SF/#29 Overall (ESPN), #5 SF/#17 Overall (247 Sports)
The son of former NBA player Adrian Griffin, AJ projects to be next in the lengthy line of Duke one-and-done wings. Like Banchero, he has great athleticism with a 40-inch vertical, and all the savviness you would expect from the son of a former NBA player/current NBA assistant coach. He possesses good size for the position and currently projects as a lottery pick in the 2022 NBA Draft. He did receive unwelcome news a few weeks back about a knee sprain that was expected to sideline him indefinitely, but after playing in Saturday’s exhibition against Winston Salem State, it appears to be “all systems go” for Griffin to be ready for the start of the season. Duke will hope for him to play a similar role to Justise Winslow’s on the 2015 national championship team.
G Trevor Keels
#3 SG/#23 Overall (ESPN), #2 SG/#22 Overall (247 Sports)
At 6’4” and 221 pounds, Keels has all the size you would want for a shooting guard and then some. He’s a very physical player, but don’t let that take away from his skill level. He very well could be the best perimeter scorer on this Duke team, and all reports out of Duke’s practices are that he’s even better than originally advertised. Playing with his former high school teammate should only help Keels as he acclimates to the college game, something that should take him less time than the average prospect given his physical stature. While the professional career of DJ Steward isn’t off to the best start so far, Duke fans may end up just fine with the tradeoff for Keels, who committed just one day after Steward announced his intentions of leaving Durham after just one year.
In depth article on Keels’ commitment: Link
G Jaylen Blakes
#21 PG/#91 Overall (ESPN), #17 PG/#105 Overall (247 Sports)
Blakes was the final member of the class to commit to Duke, and while he doesn’t figure to have a major role on this year’s team, he still could wind up being an important piece. We mentioned earlier that both Wendell Moore and Jeremy Roach will split the lion’s share of time as the primary ball handler, but just how much we see of Blakes could depend on the improvement of those two in their ability to run the show. If he doesn’t feature prominently this season, his development is certainly something to monitor in the coming years.
In depth article on Blakes’ commitment: Link
F Theo John
2020-21 Stats: 8.0 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 1.2 APG
After playing four years at Marquette under former Duke player and coach Steve Wojciechowski, Theo John chose to exhaust his collegiate eligibility in Durham and chase a national championship. He’s incredibly gifted physically and will mostly serve as Mark Williams’ backup at center. His final season in Milwaukee was a bit of a mixed bag – he posted a career high in true shooting percentage but saw his rebounding rates plummet and posted the lowest block percentage of his career as well. In his four years at Marquette, he never displayed any semblance of offensive prowess. On a team that doesn’t lack for firepower in that department, Duke will need John to get back to what he did best at Marquette in years prior: being an enforcer.
F Bates Jones
2020-21 Stats: 2.6 PPG, 2.6 RPG, 0.8 APG
The brother of former Duke quarterback, Daniel Jones, Bates will play out his college career at Duke and provide depth in the front court. He’s mostly known for his ability to stretch the floor as a four; he hit as many three-point field goals as he did two-point field goals in his four years at Davidson. At the time of his commitment, Henry Coleman III was still on Duke’s projected roster for 2021-22, which left almost no minutes at the power forward spot to go around. While you’d figure the Blue Devils will go small a good amount, Jones could figure to see a modest amount of minutes spelling Paolo Banchero throughout the season with Coleman now unfortunately out of the picture.
In depth article on Jones’ and John’s commitment: Link
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As we conclude, I do want to separate fact from fiction with this year’s team. It’s around this time every season that people talk about how deep the Blue Devils’ roster is. I can almost assure you there will be a 7 to 8-man rotation by March, just like every other season. There’s also hope that Coach K will be his best self in his final season, birthed from the narrative that he’s no longer splitting his attention from the team with recruiting efforts. Believe me, Mike Krzyzewski is who he is at this point. He is decrepit and stubborn and will not change. Do not expect a different version of him this season than the one you’ve seen mismanage talented rosters for the past five years. For me, there are three main keys to the season that will determine just how good this team can be:
- Can Paolo Banchero play at a National Player of the Year level?
- Can Jeremy Roach and Wendell Moore solidify the point guard position?
- Can the team consistently hit three-pointers?
If the team can answer yes to all three of these questions, then they absolutely have what it takes to cut down the nets in New Orleans. Fair or not, every Duke season is judged by whether or not a banner is hung in Cameron Indoor Stadium at the end of it. There will be a significant amount of added pressure from Coach K’s final season and all the fanfare and attention that will come along with it, but this team is strong and built to manage it. It's going to be a wild ride, but that's what makes college basketball so much fun.
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