#13: Duke Transfer Roundup 2021

With the off-season news coming in at a slower rate than it was just a month ago, I thought it’d be a good opportunity to take a look back at Duke’s outgoing transfers and what to expect from them in the 2021-22 season. While we covered each roster move in detail in the real time, none of the players declared their new team right away, and thus we weren’t able to project anything based off their landing spot. With all four of the former Blue Devils’ destinations secured, let’s take a look at what we can anticipate from them.

Jaemyn Brakefield: Mississippi

Following an inconsistent freshman season at Duke, Brakefield decided to return to his home state of Mississippi to continue his collegiate career. In 2020-21, Ole Miss went 16-12, including ten wins in the SEC, but failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Like most programs, they’ve had their fair share of player movement this off-season. With the dust mostly settled, there appears to be an opportunity for Brakefield to play a key role immediately for the Rebels. Two frontcourt starters from last season, Romello White and KJ Buffen, won’t be returning to Oxford. The same goes for Khadim Sy, a starter for Ole Miss in the 2019-20 season who battled knee injuries throughout the 2020-21 campaign. There are also losses in the backcourt, including last season’s leading scorer, Devontae Shuler, who’ll be pursuing professional opportunities along with White.

The only rotational pieces that are returning in the frontcourt are Robert Allen, who started 8 games last season after transferring from Samford, and Sammy Hunter, a 6’9” forward who hasn’t made much of an impact in his two seasons for the Rebels. Duke fans may remember Miami center Nysier Brooks, who’ll be joining Brakefield in transferring to Ole Miss. The two figure to have a great shot of coming in and starting immediately for head coach Kermit Davis. It’s unlikely Ole Miss will contend for a conference championship in 2021-22, as the SEC looks to be very strong yet again. However, a tournament berth isn’t out of the conversation, and Brakefield will get plenty of chances to go head-to-head with the plethora of talented forwards in the conference. With the disappointment of his first year behind him, Jaemyn will have a great chance in Oxford to play a hefty amount of minutes – something he wouldn’t have done at Duke this year – and try to work his way back onto the radar of NBA scouts. 

Original coverage of transfer: https://savedukebasketball.blogspot.com/2021/03/2-jaemyn-brakefield-enters-transfer.html

Jordan Goldwire: Oklahoma

After their run in the NCAA Tournament was halted by the eventual runners-up Gonzaga Bulldogs, the Oklahoma program saw an upheaval that few teams could match this off-season. Just a few days after the loss, head coach Lon Kruger announced his retirement, and seven of the ten players who logged at least 100 minutes in the 2020-21 season would follow him soon after. The biggest hole was left at point guard by senior Austin Reaves, the proverbial heart and soul of the team who declared for the NBA draft. Umoja Gibson and Elijah Harkless, both 2020 transfers from smaller schools, were the only backcourt players returning, and neither had previously shown the ability to play lead guard for a power conference team. There were plenty of minutes to go around in the projected rotation of new coach Porter Moser. 

Insert Jordan Goldwire, who, after four years of playing the role of defensive specialist, is yearning for the chance to run a team. Such a chance he never would’ve gotten under Mike Krzyzewski. Don’t get me wrong, Coach K loved Jordan and would’ve found ways to get him on the floor plenty during the 2021-22 season. But Jordan wanted be the lead guard, and that simply wasn’t in Duke’s plans. Goldwire isn’t the only incoming transfer for the Sooners; he’ll be joined by brothers Tanner and Jacob Groves of Eastern Washington as well as SMU’s Ethan Chargois. Most of the Sooners’ rotation will be made up of guys who scored double digit points per game at lower levels, but they won’t have a single guy who’s done it at such a level as the Big 12. The success of the team will be largely predicated on players, including Goldwire, taking on a bigger portion of offensive responsibilities than they saw last season. Having watched Jordan for four years, it’ll certainly be interesting to see whether or not he’s capable of it. 

Original coverage of transfer: https://savedukebasketball.blogspot.com/2021/03/3-jordan-goldwire-also-enters-transfer.html

Patrick Tapé: San Francisco

If 45 minutes of the Patrick Tapé Experience weren’t enough for you for Duke, you’ll get one last chance to watch him play this upcoming season. You’d better be ready to set the DVR to record those late Pacific time tip-offs, as he’ll be finishing out his collegiate career at the University of San Francisco of the West Coast Conference. Yes, that means you’ll get to watch him play at least one game against the likely preseason #1 team, the Gonzaga Bulldogs. But Gonzaga isn’t the only capable team in the conference, as the WCC will try to send multiple teams to the NCAA Tournament for the third time in the last four years.

The Dons won’t be the favorite to lock down that second spot, but don’t rule them out entirely. While their 11-14 record in 2020-21 was disappointing, they did manage to knock off the Virginia Cavaliers early in the season and should return most of their roster. Tapé will actually be joined in San Francisco by his former Columbia teammate, Gabe Stefanini, who has played just 45 less minutes than Patrick since the 2018-19 season. Also in the fold for the Dons are San Diego’s Yauhen Massalski and Nevada’s Zane Meeks, both of whom should provide front court depth. Last season’s leading scorer, Jamaree Bouyea, has been linked with the NBA draft process, but if he stays, San Francisco will have a real chance to contend for an NCAA Tournament berth in 2021-22. 

Original coverage of transfer: https://savedukebasketball.blogspot.com/2021/03/4-patrick-tape-re-enters-transfer-portal.html

Henry Coleman III: Texas A&M

The first two years of Buzz Williams’ tenure at Texas A&M haven’t gone as smoothly as the Aggie faithful would’ve hoped, and there’s plenty of reason to believe year three won’t be much better. After racking up just two conference wins in the COVID-shortened season, eight different Aggies entered their name into the transfer portal. If Williams is going to earn his $24 million contract, he’ll have to do so by building the program back from the ground up. Part of that foundation was the addition of Duke’s Henry Coleman III, whose transfer caught a lot of Duke fans off guard, including myself. While Henry will be missed in Durham, there’s no doubt his opportunity to play is much greater in College Station.

Despite the eight transfers, A&M’s cupboard of returning players isn’t completely bare – they’ll return three of their top six scorers from a season ago. Fortunately for Coleman’s prospects of immediate playing time, all of the returns come in the backcourt. Similar to Brakefield’s situation at Ole Miss, the Aggies’ frontcourt rotation projects to be mostly newcomers at the moment, giving Henry a great opportunity to contribute right away. His biggest competition for minutes appears to be Arkansas transfer Ethan Henderson, Connecticut transfer Javonte Brown, and freshman Ashton Smith. While Blue Devil fans will certainly feel a sense of regret if Coleman is able to blossom away from Durham, we should find out pretty soon just what type of player he can be given a real chance. 

Original coverage of transfer: https://savedukebasketball.blogspot.com/2021/04/10-henry-coleman-iii-enters-transfer.html

#12: Duke Development Diaries, Part 2

Last week, I posted the first part of a series highlighting Duke’s struggles in player development since the 2015 championship team. Here’s the second part, focusing on the players who lasted three or more years in the program from the 2017 and 2018 recruiting classes:

Note: All pictures came from Ball Durham.

Alex O’Connell (2017) – #20 SG/#87 Overall (ESPN), #14 SG/#68 Overall (247 Sports)

Duke Career Stats: 101 G, 12.5 MPG, 4.3 PPG, 1.8 RPG, 0.6 APG

On paper, Alex O’Connell is the exact type of recruit that you’d want the Blue Devils to sign. He was billed as a prolific three-point shooter with athleticism and his father even played for Duke in the 1970’s. He hit just under 49% of his threes as a freshman and even briefly wrestled a starting spot away from Trevon Duval. Unfortunately, the three-point clip O’Connell posted as a freshman turned out to be an aberration. Even at the percentage he shot from deep as a sophomore (37.5%), he could’ve been the perfect complementary player on the 2018-19 team that so desperately lacked a consistent three-point shooting presence, but he was yo-yoed in and out of the rotation for the latter half of the season. A late scratch by Cam Reddish catapulted O’Connell into a major role in the Sweet Sixteen win over Virginia Tech, but he played just three minutes in the following game which wound up being Duke’s last of the season.

Despite an uninspiring first two seasons in Durham, many around the program remained confident that O’Connell would break out as an upperclassman – he certainly wouldn’t be the first Blue Devil to do so. He averaged 11 points per game in the Devils’ first three contests, but wound up becoming an even more inconsistent version of himself than his first two seasons. He finished the year just 21/77 (27.3%) from three and made the same defensive mistakes that kept him from seeing the court more consistently as an underclassman. Ultimately, O’Connell found himself out of the rotation completely by year’s end for the first time in his career. Leaving the program seemed to be the only way for him to escape Coach K’s doghouse and it shouldn’t have surprised anybody when he entered his name in the portal at season’s end.

For a player who seemingly had all the physical tools to be an impact player, what exactly went wrong for Alex? Could the coaching staff just not tap into the resource of talent or was it impossible to do so? The verdict on this one will ultimately play out in O’Connell’s final season of college basketball. It’s hard to take much from his first season at Creighton; he was planning on redshirting and he wasn’t a part of the team’s plans. With the entire starting lineup leaving Creighton’s program, O’Connell will presumably get a chance to be one of the featured players for the first time in his career. It’s possible that this was a situation that was never going to work in Durham, but if O’Connell shines in his fifth and final year, Duke fans may live to regret letting him get away.

Jordan Goldwire (2017) – #47 PG/Unranked Overall (ESPN), #88 PG/#398 Overall (247 Sports)

Duke Career Stats: 116 G, 16.4 MPG, 2.9 PPG, 1.6 RPG, 1.8 APG

Considering how far down Goldwire ranked on all recruiting sites, this is probably the biggest win for Duke’s recent player scouting/development. As I already covered in greater detail, Goldwire emerged as an elite on-ball defender as an upperclassman who made a positive impact on the floor in spite of severe offensive limitations. Even though he never developed into a productive scorer, he led the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio as a senior. With a year of eligibility remaining, Jordan is heading to Oklahoma, where he looks to be in line for a bigger role. It’ll certainly be interesting to see Goldwire’s impact for another program and whether or not he’ll be able to take his offensive game to the next level for the Sooners.

Joey Baker (2018) – #11 PF/#41 Overall (ESPN), #7 SF/#33 Overall (247 Sports)

Duke Career Stats (To Date): 55 G, 11.3 MPG, 3.8 PPG, 1.0 RPG, 0.5 APG

The only player on the list who’s still in the program, it’d be hard not to consider Baker’s career to date at Duke a disappointment. Baker was considered the #15 overall recruit in ESPN’s 2019 rankings before he re-classified to join the star-studded 2018 class. Other than finding his way onto the cover of Sports Illustrated, Baker’s freshman season was most notable for Coach K’s inexplicable decision to pull his redshirt in February, only to play him a total of 18 minutes for the rest of the season. Thankfully for Joey, he will get that year of eligibility back, if he so chooses, thanks to the NCAA waiver. If the first three years of his collegiate career are any indication, he'll likely need it if he has any intentions of reaching the expectations he had coming in.

Baker was certainly inconsistent in his first full season playing for Duke in 2019-20, but he did have some big games off the bench and helped the Blue Devils get out of some tight spots. One that stands out in my mind was a game at Boston College where the team looked completely lifeless and in line for a vintage mid-week conference road loss. Joey had hardly played the entire game before coming in midway through the second half, but that didn't stop him from sparking the team to victory with eight points in quick succession and energy plays on defense. He only played 28 minutes in the last six games of the season before the coronavirus wiped away the post-season, but it’d be hard to call his sophomore season a failure given the coaching malpractice he endured as a freshman. 

Unfortunately for Baker, he was far less productive offensively as a junior and couldn’t carve out consistent minutes for a team that really could’ve used another upperclassman presence on both sides of the ball. What may be a surprise to some is that Baker was Duke’s most impactful defensive player according to on/off splits among players who played over 100 minutes in 2020-21. If his shot had been falling, he would’ve played a lot more than he did and it’s certainly fair to question whether or not he should’ve been given greater liberty to play through slumps. But there is no questioning that his offensive game regressed from his sophomore season, even outside of any cold shooting from deep. His assist rate was cut in half, his turnover rate nearly doubled, and he shot only 30% on two-point field goals. He still can’t be trusted to put the ball on the floor and attack the basket despite plenty of failed attempts to try and do so. 

All indications are that Baker will stick around for a fourth season in Durham. While he won’t be the only senior on the roster, he’ll be the only Blue Devil to have been in the program for four full seasons. The role he'll have will largely be determined by whether or not he can consistently knock down outside shots and make good decisions with the basketball. Even in his sophomore season, his shooting accuracy fluctuated from game to game and we’ve seen that Coach K does not have enough confidence in him to let him play through a cold stretch. Duke’s expectations will likely be as lofty as ever in 2021-22 and Baker is going to be called upon in big moments. The entire trajectory of his Duke career will change based on whether or not he delivers in them.

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So how should we temper our forecasts for recruits who are viewed as more of a “long term play”? Simple, don’t expect much. The players who are good enough to jump to the professional ranks after one or two seasons are doing so in large abundance for Duke. Those who aren’t are either going to wind up entering the transfer portal seeking a bigger role after being recruited over by the next big incoming class or sticking around in Durham to graduate largely as the same players they were when they arrived. It’s hard to imagine this process changing as long as Mike Krzyzewski is the coach of the Blue Devils, for better or worse. 

#11: Duke Development Diaries, Part 1

It should surprise nobody reading this that today’s college basketball players are far more eager to bypass remaining eligibility in favor of a professional career. Similarly, it’s no secret than Duke and Kentucky have been the two programs to lean into this landscape change the furthest and both have a national championship to show for it. For Duke, this philosophical overhaul was a stark contrast from years past. Coach K’s first four national championship teams combined started less freshmen in their respective championship games (2) than the 2015 team that caught lightning in a bottle (3). The Blue Devils have tried time and time again to replicate this formula, but they’ve failed to even reach a Final Four in the six tries since. 13 of the 21 one-and-done players in program history have come since 2015! Meanwhile, the five teams that have actually lifted the championship trophy in that same timespan have started a combined two true freshmen. Compare that with the 21 upperclassmen starting on those five championship teams and it’s pretty obvious that experience is a very important factor in March/April. 

So why are Duke’s recent rosters trending so much younger? In the opening blog entry, I compared the program’s current recruiting strategy to a baseball player trying to hit a walk-off homerun when all his team needs him to do is get on base. But just one recruiting class cannot win a championship. Even the 2012 Kentucky and 2015 Duke teams that won the championship while heavily featuring one-and-done players also had upperclassmen playing key parts. Therein lies the problem for recent Duke teams. They've been as good as any program at bringing in star freshmen, but they've completely failed at finding and developing quality multi-year players to complement them. In this blog entry, we’ll take a look at all the Blue Devils recruited since 2015 who stayed in the program three or more seasons.

Note: All pictures came from Ball Durham.

Antonio Vrankovic (2015) – #42 C/Unranked Overall (ESPN), #51 PF/#203 Overall (247 Sports)

Duke Career Stats: 49 G, 5.5 MPG, 1.5 PPG, 1.6 RPG, 0.4 APG

Antonio signed with Duke fairly late in the recruiting process in 2015, and while he never had star expectations, he failed to even earn consistent rotation minutes at any point in his four years in Durham. Vrankovic was mostly used in only garbage time and emergency situations, but despite his lack of an overall impact, he did have some moments. In 2016-17, Duke was 12-0 in games where he played at least one minute. Let’s be clear, he was not a primary reason for any of those wins, but he did some positive things and was a better center option off the bench than freshman Marques Bolden that season. My personal favorite Vrankovic performance came in the 2019 ACC Tournament against North Carolina, where he was inserted into the game down 11 after Javin DeLaurier got into foul trouble and was part of the mishmash unit that helped tie the game at 44 by halftime. Vrankovic only played 269 minutes in his entire collegiate career, which is far from enough to develop any player, let alone such a raw prospect. There were plenty of talented big men ahead of Vrankovic in the rotation every season, but just on the grounds that he never even got a chance to prove if he could be a positive rotational piece for the Blue Devils, this one has to go down as a miss.

Marques Bolden (2017) – #2 C/#16 Overall (ESPN), #1 C/#14 Overall (247 Sports)

Duke Career Stats: 88 G, 13.6 MPG, 3.8 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 0.4 APG

The highest ranked recruit on this list by a mile and the only McDonalds All-American, Bolden arrived at Duke with lofty expectations and was seen by many as a potential one-and-done himself. After a lower leg injury forced him to miss the first eight games of his freshman campaign, he was never able to find his footing (pun not intended). He played just 11 total minutes in Duke’s final eight games, including three straight DNP’s to end the season. Naturally, the transfer rumors started to swirl, but Bolden decided in the end to return to Durham for a second season. The additions of Marvin Bagley III and Wendell Carter Jr. relegated Bolden to the bench again as a sophomore, but Marques was able to parlay a mostly clean bill of health into a much more productive campaign. Despite the still-limited minutes (373), he emerged as the team’s second best shot blocker.

Coming back for his third and ultimately final season in Durham, Marques was finally given a chance to start and play the majority of the center minutes alongside perhaps Duke’s most hyped freshmen class ever. He and Javin DeLaurier both had stints in the starting unit, but neither was able to take a firm hold of the position. Bolden’s extraordinary shot blocking got even better in 2018-19, but his offensive game was still far from what was expected of him early on in his career and his defensive rebounding rate dropped from the season before. An MCL sprain in the last regular season game against North Carolina knocked him out of the ACC tournament, and the Bolden that returned for the NCAA Tournament just wasn’t the same – a detail that I think gets lost in the eulogy of the 2018-19 Duke Blue Devils. 

With Vernon Carey Jr. set to arrive in Durham the coming fall and Javin DeLaurier returning for his senior season, the writing was on the wall for Bolden. He chose to make the jump to the pros, but unfortunately didn’t hear his name called in the 2019 NBA Draft. He’s bounced up and down a few times with the Cleveland Cavaliers and their G-League affiliate, the Canton Charge, before eventually being waived in February. Given the hype that surrounded him as a recruit, Bolden’s career at Duke has to be considered a failure by both the Duke coaching staff and the recruiting pundits who ranked him so high in the first place. He developed into a serviceable center who started 60% of his games in his final season, but that’s not what anybody would've hoped for out of a top twenty recruit who was garnering major NBA buzz before coming to Durham.

Javin DeLaurier (2016) – #9 PF/#45 Overall (ESPN), #11 PF/#39 Overall (247 Sports)

Duke Career Stats: 114 G, 13.4 MPG, 3.4 PPG, 3.8 RPG, 0.4 APG

Javin was the third member of the celebrated 2016 recruiting class to commit to Duke and while his expectations were far from the highest of the group, he was one of only two players in the class to play all four seasons in Durham. Even though the 2016-17 team faced injury problems all season long, DeLaurier only played 85 minutes as a freshman, 76 of which came before December 10th. To be honest, it’s pretty surprising that transfer rumors didn’t pour in like they always seem to do for Duke players who fail to find success right away. But Javin came back to school and earned a bigger role as a sophomore, playing rotation minutes in a crowded frontcourt and even earning five starts. He didn’t shoot much outside of the restricted area, but he did connect on over 64% of his field goals and was a solid defensive player and rebounder.

As was mentioned in the previous section, DeLaurier and Marques Bolden would mostly take turns as the fifth starter alongside the four star freshmen of the 2018 class. Both provided high-level rim protection, but neither player emerged as a consistent offensive option at any point during the season. DeLaurier’s lack of offensive development was epitomized by his turnover percentage of 23.7% despite the second lowest usage rate on the team. He did have his best game of the season in Duke’s last, going for 10 points on 5-5 from the field, 11 rebounds and 3 blocks in the heartbreaking Elite 8 loss to Michigan State. He attempted to parlay his big game into positive feedback during the NBA draft process, but he eventually received the correct advice that he would be best served coming back to school for one more season. With Vernon Carey Jr. arriving on campus, Javin’s opportunities to shine came few and far between as a senior. His usage percentage did just barely reach a career high, but both his role and production were largely the same as the two years prior.

After a disappointing end to his senior season thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, DeLaurier would go undrafted in 2020. It’d be easy to label this one as a recruiting whiff by the Duke staff. After all, there are several players who ranked lower than Javin in 2016 – Kevin Huerter, Grant Williams, Robert Williams, and Payton Pritchard to name a few – who were drafted after their time in college. But could Javin have turned out better in a system more suited to develop raw players? It’s almost impossible to see a scenario where Javin ends up any less developed than he did after his four years at Duke. What about his game was so much different as a senior than it was as a sophomore? Did his remarkably bad hands get any more reliable? He’s going to have an uphill battle trying to breakthrough onto an NBA roster over the next few years and is yet another example of Duke’s player development failing a recruit who came to Durham with potential.

Jack White (2016) – #45 SF/#226 Overall (247 Sports)

Duke Career Stats: 103 G, 13.6 MPG, 2.7 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 0.6 APG

Not to be confused with any famous guitarists, basketball-playing Jack White was another recruit who came to Duke with little to no fanfare. The Australian native had offers from lesser programs like Boise State and Albany, but opted instead to join Duke’s already loaded 2016 recruiting class instead. He didn’t get much of an opportunity (just 220 minutes) in his first two seasons in Durham, but that didn’t stop White and Javin DeLaurier from being named co-captains in 2018 on a team begging for production from upperclassmen. For the first thirteen games of the season, White was sensational as a role player. He was scoring 7.5 points per game while hitting over 41% of his three point attempts. He also notched 6.8 rebounds, 1.2 steals, and 1.4 blocks per contest. He was exactly the role player then number one ranked Duke needed to complement their cavalcade of freshmen stars. 

Shortly after, the wheels fell off. In a January overtime loss to Syracuse, White missed all ten of his three point attempts. In the following games, Jack’s confidence was understandably lost. He became hesitant to shoot open shots even when opponents dared him and his allotment of minutes got smaller as a result. He would continue on to miss 18 more threes in a row before finally breaking out of his slump against Miami in early March. He would later injure his hamstring in the ACC championship game against Florida State, which forced him out of action during the first weekend in the NCAA Tournament. He then returned against Virginia Tech in the Sweet 16 but was a non-factor in the last two games of the season. There are a lot of plot points when reminiscing about the 18-19 team’s failure to win the program’s sixth championship, but White’s late season yips shouldn’t be lost among them. If he plays anywhere close to his early season level down the stretch, Duke would have been much harder to beat in the tournament.

White returned for his senior season and again assumed the mantle of co-captain alongside DeLaurier and sophomore Tre Jones. He was still the guy Duke could count on to give his all every night, but his shooting form from the early days of 2018-19 never returned. On one of Duke’s deeper teams in recent memory, White eventually found himself on the outside of the rotation, only playing 61 combined minutes in Duke’s final ten games, and his Duke career was unceremoniously ended by the coronavirus pandemic. Ultimately, this was a guy who did all the little things and showed flashes as a guy who could stretch the floor. Why he only played 220 minutes in his first two seasons is something I’ll never understand. Specifically, the 2017-18 team didn’t have another small forward on the roster and was porous defensively before a switch to 2-3 zone saved the season. An impact defensive player such as White could've had an impact on that team and White would've benefited in the long run as well. Unfortunately for White and the others, Coach K and the rest of the staff simply don't have any semblance of long term vision anymore.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we'll highlight the recruits from the 2017 and 2018 classes.

#10: Henry Coleman III enters the transfer portal

NEWS: Henry Coleman will enter transfer portal. pic.twitter.com/fNExRQ53Bd

— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) April 20, 2021

Just when it seemed the Duke roster for next season was finally starting to take shape, the turbulent 2021 college basketball off-season struck yet again. On Tuesday afternoon, it was announced that freshman forward Henry Coleman III would be entering the transfer portal, the fourth Blue Devil to do so in the past month. There's been plenty of personnel turnover in the Duke program recently with the recent influx of one-and-done players, but this amount of players coming and going is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. What’s perhaps most unfortunate is that I can say with zero confidence that’s it’s unlike anything we’ll ever see again, as this just seems to be the direction college sports are headed.

Coleman’s freshman season at Duke was rather mundane, but he did have a few big moments in home games against North Carolina and Virginia when the team needed a lift. Although he was rather raw offensively and could’ve even been a redshirt candidate in a normal season, Coleman was an incredibly effective defensive player whenever his number was called upon. In the 95 minutes Coleman played, Duke was over 13 points better defensively per 100 possessions. Obviously, that’s a very small sample size, but the eye test backed up Coleman’s impact on that end. Even if his offense didn’t come around in time for the 2021-22 season, he would’ve been a welcome presence on the roster for his energy and effort on both ends.

The immediate question that has to be asked is whether or not the acquisition of Marquette transfer Theo John pushed Coleman out the door. While John is more of a traditional center than Coleman, the two would presumably be competing for the same frontcourt minutes off the bench. Only those inside the program will know the exact order in which these events went down, but if John is the reason for Coleman’s departure, it further emphasizes how badly Coach K has mismanaged players over the past six seasons in order to try and win a sixth championship. If Duke doesn’t win it all this season, this is a bad gamble by the staff, plain and simple.

Coleman's defensive presence wasn't enough to earn consistent minutes last season. Source: Raleigh News & Observer

From Coleman’s perspective, this may wind up being a great decision for the development of his career. The failures of late by the Duke coaching staff to develop players ranked outside of the top fifty is no secret. As the 54th-ranked prospect in the 2020 class, Coleman’s development simply was not at the top of the list of priorities. It’s sad to see yet another young player leave who would’ve helped Blue Devil teams in the future, but in the era where kids can transfer and play immediately, who is going to want to sit around and wait multiple seasons for a chance at playing time?

With Coleman’s departure, the six-man 2020 recruiting class that ranked second nationally is down to just two remaining players, Jeremy Roach and Mark Williams. What is the point of bringing in these heralded recruiting classes if the players aren’t even in Durham for a full season? Not since the 2015 class has Duke retained over 50% of its freshmen in a given season and 80% of that group was gone by the end of year two. It’d be one thing if this was a proven model for winning in college basketball, but it simply isn’t. Teams with experience have a big edge in the winner-take-all games of March and April, but the Duke coaching staff doesn’t even seem to care. Sure, experience is easier to attain than ever these days with the transfer portal, but there’s something to be said for groups with roster continuity that have been through the heat of battle together (see Duke's 2010 roster). 

Obviously, the 2020-21 team endured plenty of ups and downs on their way to missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1995, but I don’t think anybody could’ve expected this type of roster purge. Counting Jalen Johnson, Duke has now lost seven of their eleven scholarship players from the start of the 2020-21 season and we haven’t even reached May. The transfer portal is closing in on 1,500 names and it’d be naïve to assume this is Duke’s last player to enter it this spring. One thing is clear; the Duke coaching staff is all-in on another run for a championship this season. If any returning player on the roster wasn’t happy with their projected role on the 2021-22 team, they had every right to seek other opportunities. Henry Coleman III did just that and we wish him nothing but the best. 

#9: Duke adds 2021 four-star PG Jaylen Blakes

After last week’s additions to the frontcourt, the only glaring hole on Duke’s 2021-22 roster, at least as it stands today, was at point guard. Duke struggled to get consistent production from the lead guard spot last season and while neither Jeremy Roach nor Wendell Moore have yet announced any intentions to leave Durham, there was certainly room for another player capable of filling minutes at the position. On Monday afternoon, the void was filled when four-star guard Jaylen Blakes became the fourth member of Duke’s 2021 recruiting class. He officially committed to the Blue Devils just one week after receiving an offer from the coaching staff. With minutes to be had at the guard positions, Blakes is likely to be a factor in Duke’s rotation right away.

Blakes, the 86th-ranked 2021 prospect according to ESPN, had plenty of other power conference offers on the table before Duke swooped in. He attended the same high school, Blair Academy, as former Blue Devil Luol Deng and was the winningest player in program history. Jaylen is an intriguing prospect offensively, but his defensive ability is what will matter the most early on in his Duke career as he attempts to carve out a role. He has been reported to have 6’8” wingspan despite standing just 6’2” and should give Duke a reliable defensive option at guard if Roach cannot show significant improvements from his freshman season on that end. By all accounts, Blakes is a hard-working young man and should have no problem finding a spot in Duke’s rotation next season.

Jaylen Blakes has a chance to play a key role in Duke's guard rotation. Source: Blue Devil Nation

Unfortunately for Duke, the recent history with players in this range of the recruiting rankings isn’t very favorable. While the expectation would be for signees outside of the top 40 to stay at the same school for multiple years and blossom into starting-caliber players as upperclassmen, the examples of this are growing fewer and further between with each passing season. Duke’s recent track record of player development is about as bleak as it gets, which is especially disappointing from a program that used to be so reliant on star juniors and seniors. Not many guys are hanging around the program for four years lately, and those that are aren’t developing to anything more than role players.

Duke’s recent developmental failures don’t spell doom and gloom for Blakes, however. The program is “championship or bust” every season these days as Coach K’s career winds down, and Jaylen is filling a specific role on a team that will presumably start the season ranked in the top ten yet again this year. Sophomore Jeremy Roach will most likely be the starting point guard to start the season, but that doesn’t mean he can’t lose minutes. After all, Roach started 18 of 24 games this past season and still found himself either relegated to off-ball duties or on the bench entirely for important stretches. Jordan Goldwire played 28.5 minutes per game on last year’s team just by playing mistake free on offense and shining on the defensive end. If Blakes comes in right away and earns Coach K’s trust on both sides, he could find himself playing in plenty of big spots.

#8: Duke adds transfers Bates Jones and Theo John

At this point, it’s becoming cliché to talk about the chaotic nature of this off-season. The deck is being reshuffled across the country on an hourly basis and there’s no sign of it slowing down anytime soon. What may have caught a lot of longtime followers by surprise is that Duke is now officially the beneficiary of transfer news, and it’s not just one player. That’s right; Mike Krzyzewski is finally embracing the transfer portal, a rare sign of adaptation from the 74-year-old. Just in the last 24 hours, Duke managed to add two super seniors in Davidson’s Bates Jones and Marquette’s Theo John. The two will bolster a Duke roster that, after the news of Matthew Hurt’s departure, only featured three scholarship players at power forward and center.

After playing four years for the Davidson Wildcats, Jones will head to Durham for his fifth and final season of collegiate eligibility. He’s following in the footsteps of his brother, Daniel, who spent four years playing quarterback at Duke himself before being picked in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft by the New York Giants. Bates was never a star in his time at Davidson, but he did feature in the rotation as an upperclassman and even started five games in his career. The 6’8” power forward wasn’t a primary scoring option for the Wildcats when he was on the court, but he did shoot more than half of his career field goal attempts from three-point range and converted at a percentage higher than any returning player on Duke’s team shot in 2020-21. It seems unlikely that he’ll feature prominently in the rotation for the Blue Devils this coming season, but he does provide depth and experience for a team that only had one senior on the roster going into this week.

Jones will give Duke another frontcourt option off the bench in 2021-22. Source: Davidson College Athletics

While Jones doesn’t figure to play much of a part in Duke’s plans for 2021-22, Theo John was a three-year starter for Marquette and the defensive backbone for Steve Wojciechowski’s Golden Eagles. The Marquette teams anchored by the Minnesota native were never stout defensively, but it was far from the fault of John. In his four seasons in Milwaukee, Theo put his 7'4" wingspan to good use, posting a career block percentage of 8.4%. For comparison, Marques Bolden posted a block percentage of 8.5% in 2018-19. As the previous entry about Hurt’s departure already mentioned, Duke only had one player they could count on for rim protection last season, and John will be a welcome addition to the roster in that regard.

On the offensive end, John is far more limited. He did see a modest increase in usage as a senior due to the departure of Markus Howard, but his output was still very minimal. He’s very well built at 6’9” and 245 pounds, but he’s not much of a finisher outside of the restricted area and his post repertoire could best be described as robotic. He turned the ball over on 22.5% of his possessions, which is far too high for someone a player in his role. To help paint a picture, it’s roughly equivalent to Javin DeLaurier’s career turnover percentage for Duke. On the bright side, he did improve his free throw percentage considerably from 56% as a junior to a very respectable 74% as a senior and even hit three out of four shots from three.

John could play a vital defensive role for Duke next season. Source: Marquette University Athletics

With the slight uptick in offensive responsibility, other areas of John’s game dipped; his offensive rebound (7.3%), defensive rebound (14.3%), and block (6.0%) percentages were all career lows as a senior. Hopefully with a stronger group of talent around him at Duke, John can get back to doing what he does best. One could assume that a three-year starter in the Big East wouldn’t commit to Duke without at least some guarantees in terms of playing time and role definition, but Duke shouldn’t need John to do any of the things he isn’t already well suited to do. If he’s been brought in to be a low-usage backup to Mark Williams at the five, he’s a great pickup from the portal. The worst case scenario is that his signing was a panic move to fill the hole that could hypothetically be left by a surprise departure from Williams. While he’d obviously still be needed in that case, Williams’ exit would be the toughest pill to swallow yet this off-season for Blue Devil fans and would put a serious damper onto any championship aspirations.

Saying Duke’s roster is unlikely to change between now and the start of the 2021-22 season would be a foolish endeavor, but no matter what is still to come, Duke at least has taken the necessary steps to solidify its frontcourt. The one-time transfer rule is officially here to stay, and taking advantage of the portal is going to become second nature for all programs soon enough. The biggest positive for Duke is that it seems finally ready to use it as a positive way to bolster the roster and not just accept losing disgruntled players to it. They dipped their toes in last off-season with Patrick Tapé, and while his impact was minimal, the staff is thankfully not afraid to test the market again. If anything, the bar was set so low by the program’s first-ever graduate transfer that these two should have no problem coming in and making an impact.

#7: Matthew Hurt declares for NBA Draft

Best wishes to our guy @HurtMatthew! A walking bucket headed to the league. pic.twitter.com/bk6qmiAWfM

— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) April 14, 2021

It had been a little too quiet on the news front regarding Duke’s off-season roster turnover, but on Wednesday afternoon, it was finally confirmed that Matthew Hurt would be leaving Duke and moving onto the NBA. This headline should come as a surprise to no one, as Hurt was a consensus top fifteen recruit in 2019 who never intended to spend more than one season in college to begin with. After an up-and-down freshman campaign, Hurt needed to return to college if he hoped to ever hear his name called in the NBA Draft. As a sophomore, Hurt had about as good of an offensive season as he could’ve hoped and played his way back onto the NBA radar, albeit as a potential second round pick.

While Hurt improved in a lot of areas from year one to year two, the biggest difference between Hurt’s two seasons at Duke was the twenty pounds he added in the off-season. In the last ten games of the 2019-20 season, Hurt averaged just 6.4 points in 15.7 minutes per game. Even his shooting tailed off dramatically (40.8% from the field, 32.0% from three) and he lost most of his minutes to the revelation that was redshirt senior Justin Robinson. Despite his advanced skillset, he wasn’t physically ready to be a star at the collegiate level. The extra weight allowed Hurt to withstand the wear and tear of the full season and do what he does best: shoot the basketball. While the numbers may not even do his shooting clips this season justice, let’s give it a shot:

Now that Matthew Hurt is done this season: what a ridiculous shooting display

44 3P%, 63.5 2P%, 65 eFG% (296 FGA)

- post-ups: 1.37 ppp, 71 FG% (No. 1 nationally, 50+ poss)
- catch-and-shoot: 61 eFG%
- off-dribble: 55 eFG%
- 75 FG% rim, 57 FG% long 2PA https://t.co/xY3moAQhna

— Brian Geisinger (@bgeis_bird) March 11, 2021

Simply put, his numbers were absolutely absurd. According to Sports-Reference, he’s one of only four players since 1992-93 to score at least 18 points per game and hit at least 50 threes while shooting 55% or better from the field and 40% or better from three. He was the second-most efficient offensive player in college basketball this season, per Synergy Sports. The team was +4.97 points per possessions better per 100 possessions with him on the court, second on the team behind only Jeremy Roach. The offensive end will have to be Hurt’s calling card at the next level as well. He didn’t often stretch his range out as far as the NBA three-point line this season, but there should be little doubt a shooter of his ability can do so. With shooting and spacing becoming more valuable every passing season in the NBA, Hurt is certain to get opportunities to carve out a role at the next level.

In spite of all the positives, Hurt was still a flawed player in his prodigious sophomore season on the defensive end. Duke’s defense was almost two full points better with Hurt off the floor than it was with him on. The roster construction didn’t help him any defensively; he played approximately 500 minutes this season without a center on the court next to him. As you could expect, these units also struggled to rebound missed shots by the opponent. Hurt did improve as a rebounder in his second season, but he still left a lot to be desired. Units the paired Hurt with Mark Williams, the best rebounder and rim protector on the team, improved in both areas and even were a slight net positive defensively compared to Duke’s usual productivity, but they still gave up almost 102.6 points per 100 possessions. Any concerns about Matt’s potential to stick in the NBA will start at this end of the court. He can’t be asked to play the center with his lack of rim protection, so he’s going to have to develop into a guy who can defend NBA forwards if he ever wants to see consistent time.

As a sophomore, Hurt posted arguably the best shooting season in program history. Source: The Fayetteville Observer

Projecting ahead for Duke, Hurt’s offensive prowess will certainly be missed. He was the only player on the 2020-21 roster that could be counted on to score consistently, specifically in late clock situations, and Duke has no immediate answer to replace him. As it currently stands, Duke won't return a single player who's ever averaged over 10 points per game before at the collegiate level, which means they'll once again be counting on a large percentage of their points to come via incoming freshmen. With that said, a team without his defensive limitations should be able to progress greatly on the end where they need to see improvement the most. When Hurt was guarding in the post, opposing teams would attack him. When Hurt was guarding on the perimeter, opposing teams would hunt for a switch to try and drive at him. He fouled out of four games in the shortened season and came one foul away in seven more. Replacing Hurt in the lineup with Paolo Banchero, a prospect touted as a versatile defender, should make a big difference next season defensively.

With his career at Duke at a close, the retrospective on Hurt is a mixed bag, though many of the reasons were out of his control. On one hand, Hurt just turned in arguably the greatest shooting season in program history. While he didn’t have nearly the volume of somebody like J.J. Redick, his efficiency (65.1 eFG%) is unmatched by anybody who’s ever shot more than 100 threes in a season for the Blue Devils – the only other Duke player with an eFG% above 60% on such volume since 1992-93 is Andre Dawkins. On the other hand, Hurt is the first Blue Devil since Mike Krzyzewski first took over the program to play two full seasons in Durham and not make the NCAA Tournament. While coronavirus is mostly to blame for that, it’s hard to consider his Duke legacy when he doesn’t have any notable postseason moments to think back on. He also scored just 21 points in four career games against North Carolina, failing to leave any sort of imprint on the rivalry. With all that said, Duke fans were fortunate to watch Matt Hurt in a Duke uniform this season at all, let alone the shooting exhibition he put on. We’re wishing him nothing but the best of luck as he tries to add his name to the long list of former Blue Devils on an NBA roster next season.