What Is Duke’s Potential In 2024-25?

Very good to potentially great

This video looks at Duke’s new roster and, well, gets a bit excited.

Is it fair to get excited?

We’d say so. Although the only players back are Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster, along with the rarely used Spencer Hubbard, Neil Begovich and Stanley Borden, there’s a lot to work with in the new players.

The freshman class is certainly talented - Cooper Flagg, Isaiah Evans, Kon Knueppel, Khaman Maluach, Darren Harris and his Paul VI teammate Patrick Ngongba - that’s a pretty gifted group.

Add in the transfers Sion James, Mason Gillis, Maliq Brown and Cameron Sheffield and that’s a tremendous amount to deal with there. And keep in mind that not only is this a huge team, with everyone other than former walk-on Hubbard over 6-5, it’s going to be deep, versatile and a pain in everyone’s neck.

Several years back we saw Wisconsin come into Cameron for the ACC-Big Ten Classic and thought good Lord that team is huge.

As it turned out, as imposing as they were vertically, they weren’t very athletic.

This team is going to be quite athletic. Leaving aside Hubbard, Begovich and Borden and who’s the least athletic player on the team? Sheffield? Harris? Ngongba? Knueppel? Sheffield won’t start but any of the other guys could.

We say that just guessing, but who the hell knows? This is a highly athletic group. Highly.

Imagine Proctor comes out and James comes in. Imagine Harris and Knueppel come in and start raining threes. Imagine Ngongba comes in and pounds away inside with his big frame?

We’re not saying this team is going to win the national championship or anything like that. Even if it was heavily favored, it requires a lot of luck to win it all.

What we are willing to say now is that this is a highly unusual group that will likely be built around Flagg and Maluach and the returning guards Proctor and Foster. It’s a group that Jim Boeheim would kill to coach because it’s perfectly suited to his 2-3 zone.

We don’t know if Scheyer will use zone at all this season and he may not know either, for that matter.

He has the athletes and size to play a punishing defense though and he’s said all along that defense is going to be the identity he builds around.

This team has the potential to be just amazing on that end and also has the potential to shoot the leather off the ball on the other.

Strap in: it may not translate into a title but it should translate into a very good team indeed.