Jeff BorzelloMar 17, 2025, 09:00 AM ET
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- Basketball recruiting insider.
- Joined ESPN in 2014.
- Graduate of College of Delaware.
The clock began ticking on Duke’s 2025 nationwide championship chase in October 2023.
That is when Cooper Flagg — the country’s No. 1 recruit of the 2024 elegance and projected No. 1 pick out within the 2025 NBA draft — introduced his dedication to the Blue Devils. His signing raised the stakes for Jon Scheyer’s 3rd season on the helm of his alma mater, which climbed even upper when Duke misplaced to ACC rival NC State within the Elite 8 5 months later.
Sheyer knew in an effort to make a deeper run this season, he must in finding the proper avid gamers — no longer essentially essentially the most proficient ones — to enrich his famous person freshman.
“I believe my greatest activity is roster building,” Scheyer stated after Duke’s win over Wake Wooded area previous this month. “I believe that is at all times been crucial factor as a head trainer in school basketball, however particularly now.”
In an generation when groups are incentivized to construct round enjoy, the Blue Devils did not use the portal to load up with transfers for the 2024-25 season. As an alternative, they signed 5 of ESPN’s height 50 recruits within the 2024 elegance, and leveraged the portal to construct round Flagg & Co.
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The method has ended in a regular-season ACC championship, a 1-seed within the NCAA match’s East area and one of the crucial most powerful campaigns prior to now 25 years of school basketball, with participant of the yr favourite Flagg and a handpicked supporting forged taking part in its easiest basketball of the season on the proper time.
“This version of the Duke Blue Devils, they’re the most productive executing crew that we performed towards within the Duke generation,” Florida State Leonard Hamilton informed ESPN after a 100-65 loss to Duke on March 1. “No longer to remove from the entire nice groups that Trainer Ok had, this crew simply gave the look to be essentially the most attached. Prior to now, possibly they could’ve had a couple of extra — to mention the least — superstars. However this crew, each time you’re making a mistake, they make you pay. They are very environment friendly.”
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In a while after Duke’s loss to NC State within the Elite 8 ultimate season, the Blue Devils’ roster was once decimated through the NBA and the switch portal. Kyle Filipowski and Jared McCain left early for the draft; Ryan Younger was once out of eligibility; and Jeremy Roach, Mark Mitchell, Sean Stewart, TJ Energy, Jaylen Blakes, Christian Reeves and Jaden Schutt entered the portal.
Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster had been the one two avid gamers who made up our minds to go back.
All at once, a crew that was once anticipated to compete for a countrywide championship seemed not anything just like the Ultimate 4 squads of latest years — or rosters of alternative projected contenders — that had been full of upperclassmen.
“There was once worry from the perspective of, taking a look round, you notice the in point of fact excellent groups had been in point of fact previous,” stated former affiliate head trainer Jai Lucas, whose new function as Miami head trainer will preclude him from staying with Duke during the postseason. “And we knew we in point of fact wanted a large number of age within the locker room, however no longer a large number of other people be able to have 3 top-10 selections. You are no longer going to have a Flagg within the portal, a [Khaman] Maluach within the portal.”
Depending closely on learners is not a brand new idea for Scheyer; he was once a part of a number of Duke staffs that landed the highest recruiting elegance of a given yr, together with the 2014-15 crew that received the name with 3 beginning learners: Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones.
However that was once a distinct generation of school basketball. And hoping to win a name with a slew of five-star recruits is not intended to be imaginable anymore. With the explosion of the portal and further years of eligibility because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the “get previous, keep previous” mantra hasn’t ever been extra obvious around the game.
Duke has leaned into its adolescence, despite the fact that, and it has paid off. Flagg, Maluach and Kon Knueppel have each and every began each sport this season: Flagg has the most powerful case for nationwide participant of the yr; Maluach is one of the country’s elite offensive rebounders and shot blockers (and shoots 74% from the sphere); and Knueppel is the crew’s second-leading scorer.
Cooper Flagg has led the Duke Blue Devils to a 1-seed within the 2025 males’s NCAA match. Lance King/Getty Photographs
And whilst fellow freshman Isaiah Evans has observed his mins range, he averaged 17.3 issues in a four-game stretch between Feb. 17 and March 1. Even large guy Patrick Ngongba has given Duke high quality mins with Maliq Brown sidelined for quite a lot of multigame stretches.
So when your learners are this excellent, it makes up for a large number of inexperience. However how you’ll construct round the ones avid gamers is very important — simply ask Rutgers, which began two learners lottery selections and completed the season 15-17, lacking the NCAA match completely.
“I am not going to take a seat right here and say the recipe shifting ahead is at all times six learners,” Scheyer informed ESPN in October. “I am not pronouncing that, however I consider in the proper learners, we consider in the proper learners with the proper enjoy, the right mix of complementing avid gamers.”
The Blue Devils knew 3 attainable one-and-done learners would not be sufficient to win on the absolute best point. They did not simply wish to pick out off the most productive scorers or the highest-ranked transfers, despite the fact that. They had to in finding items who would have compatibility round Flagg — and be content material with it.
“[Playing with Flagg] appears like a excellent deal, and also you pitch it that means, however some other people get started asking questions,” Lucas stated concerning the exodus of ultimate season’s veterans during the portal.
And so Scheyer & Co. put as a lot of a top class on toughness as they did dimension and flexibility when leveraging the portal to construct round Flagg and this learners elegance.
“The article that we now have been lacking — it is not simply bodily toughness, it is psychological toughness,” Scheyer informed ESPN within the fall. “It was once about hanging in combination the most productive crew, to not win your switch portal ratings or to win any of that. It was once about hanging in combination the most productive crew.”
2025 males’s NCAA match information
• Medcalf: First have a look at the Box of 68
• Lipscomb: Bracket info
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Borzello: Quick bracket
• Lunardi: Variety committee reactions
• Bilas: Choosing each tourney sport
• Large Killers: Doable first-round upsets
• Vitale: Who will win the 2025 name?
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Whilst their 3 key additions were not discovered on height to be had switch lists, two had been well known veterans: Gillis was once a constant rotation participant for high-level groups at Purdue, taking pictures 40% from 3 over 4 seasons with the Boilermakers. And Brown was once one of the crucial easiest defensive avid gamers within the ACC for Syracuse, going for 26 issues and seven rebounds towards Duke ultimate January.
And Sion James’ dimension, enjoy and talent to get his personal shot — he averaged 14.0 issues with 38% taking pictures from 3 at Tulane ultimate season — introduced intrigue. After coming off the bench for the primary seven video games, James was once inserted into Duke’s beginning lineup, the place he has been a constant asset at each ends of the ground.
“It is not simply his playmaking, [James] is in keep watch over of the sport, guy,” Scheyer stated ultimate month after beating Illinois 110-67. “He is so unselfish, performs at an ideal velocity. Clearly you’ll have a look at his assist-to-turnover ratio, no longer simply on this sport, however then all through the entire season, particularly the ultimate couple months of play.
“And he makes everyone higher. That is the greatest factor.”
Discovering veterans prepared to yield the highlight to more youthful avid gamers — albeit on a countrywide name contender — is an overly skinny needle to string, however Duke has performed it with James, Gillis and Brown.
James and Gillis had been known on senior night time, when Duke hosted its ultimate sport of the season March 3, they usually each and every scored 11 issues in a 93-60 win over Wake Wooded area. After the sport, Duke’s learners stars mirrored at the management of departing avid gamers.
“They have got been implausible function fashions, appearing me what to do and precisely how one can do it,” Flagg stated. “They have got each taken me underneath their wings. Their preparation — simply the entirety about them is at this kind of excessive point. They deal with themselves like professionals. I have realized such a lot from them the entire yr, and they have got been team-oriented avid gamers the entire means.”
“We now have depended on them such a lot,” Maluach added. “I give credit score to them for at all times chatting with us in tricky moments, in moments we do not know what to do. They at all times talk to us and information us, thru practices or how we care for our our bodies or methods to assault video games, particularly like two video games in 3 days. They have got in point of fact been guiding us.”
Whilst the enjoy and management of Duke’s returning and bought veterans move a ways, on the middle of all of it is the long run No. 1 pick out.
“A large a part of it’s Cooper,” Lucas stated. “When your easiest participant … presentations up on a daily basis like he does and is in a position to hook up with everyone, it makes everyone at ease and in need of to shop for in. It gets rid of the egos. It begins and ends with Cooper.”
