Welcome to the Brotherhood!
The former Marquette C/F has announced via twitter that he will play his final year at Duke. Welcome!
Welcome to the Brotherhood!
That was quick! I watched quite a few Marquette games last year. He's a bruiser inside and will be great in short stints for the team. Huge add! Also, he can bring some leadership to a young team. Pumped!
Time to add Jaylen Blakes and call it an offseason.
While diving into his stats, I also noticed a little wrinkle. He was a fairly poor FT shooter his first three years, something close to 50%. Then last season, following wrist surgery, he jumps to 74% FT shooting and knocked down 3 of 4 3's. He had never attempted a 3 in his career before last season. I doubt he plays a ton of minutes with Williams and Banchero on the roster, but it's something to notice. Maybe he's found a jumper and wants to showcase that at Duke in a reserve role?
More great news.
Now let's focus exclusively on backcourt depth.
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Great news. Nice to see us filling out the roster with someone who adds talent and experience. I'm assuming Henry is cool with this and it should help his development. Hope we can get Blakes and then we should be all set. The Minnesota-to-Duke pipeline (via Wisconsin in this case) continues!
In what I hope is unrelated news, Mark Williams just put out a one word tweet, simply saying "no"
ETA: Should have looked closer, he sent that late last night
I think this will prove to be a good addition, presuming he's healthy. Sounds like he was playing through injuries the last two years, and his numbers dipped a bit especially this past year. But comparing his sophomore and junior-year per-100 numbers to the freshman numbers for Mark Williams and we get the following:
John (SO): 15.8 points, 14.0 rebounds, 5.9 blocks, 10.5 fouls, 60.2 fg%
John (JR): 13.8 points, 14.0 rebounds, 4.9 blocks, 7.3 fouls, 54.9 fg%
Williams: 27.1 points, 17.0 rebounds, 5.3 blocks, 5.6 fouls, 66.4 fg%
So if healthy, he seems like a pretty solid backup to Williams, more or less replicating the shotblocking prowess, with a bit of a reduction in rebounding and a big reduction in offensive value. But for a backup big, that seems pretty darn useful.
And in the event of an injury or Williams deciding to go pro, a healthy version of him is a credible starting center.
I like it. And I agree that if we can land Jaylen Blakes and keep Roach/Moore/Williams, it feels like a really good offseason all things considered.
Oh boy! Welcome Theo! Wow! What a commitment from Coach K and staff. Maybe the Wojo connection helped a bit with Duke landing Theo? Although Wojo isn’t there anymore he did recruit Theo to Marquette.
I like the way this Duke roster is forming. If they land a backup point guard now, I think the team is set ...
He certainly will compete in practice and I suspect he will give more than Tapé did this year. I think it is a solid pickup. Injuries happen and this kid is experienced. He is also pretty physical - that will help Williams develop and will help against some bulky opponents. Added bonus- he played at the Dean Dome and did pretty well (5-7).
Last edited by dukelifer; 04-16-2021 at 10:55 AM.
I'm psyched for this move... I think this is the type of pickup that a pretty solid majority of the board was hoping for given the madness of the transfer portal. John by all accounts looks to be a player who can give us solid minutes off the bench at both the 4 and the 5 this year, and is a veteran presence for our young guys.
While I'm sure we're all a touch nervous about Mark's status since nothing has been officially stated, it seems clear to me that he and John are completely different caliber players, so I highly doubt John is being viewed as a "replacement" for Mark. If we were expecting Mark to leave, there are plenty of "bigger fish" that would be expecting a starting role that we would've likely been at least connected to in the portal (Oklahoma's Brady Manek immediately comes to mind).
Now, assuming nothing unusual happens, I think it's safe to say that our frontcourt will be a major strength next season, with Paolo and Mark penciled in as starters, guys like Wendell and AJ who can play a small-ball 4 when/if necessary, and two guys in Henry and Theo who are solid bigs off the bench. Heck, if we have injury/foul trouble we even have Jones, who has at least played non-trivial minutes at the mid-major level. The question now is how we shore up the depth on the perimeter, especially at the point. It sounds like Blakes is the likely option there, and if that commitment comes I have to imagine we won't go too hard into the portal for perimeter help since there won't be major minutes available, but may seek a depth/practice player akin to Jones.
Losing Matt earlier this week was a blow, but I'm still VERY excited about next year's squad, and John is going to be a big part of it.
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welcome to the party, pal !!
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Couple of other fun wrinkles to the Theo John commitment:
He is a native of Minneapolis, MN
AAU teammate of Gary Trent, Jr and Tre Jones, among other high-major D1 players
You can add him to the Minny-Duke connection.
Here's a video highlight of him from his time on the Howard Pulley AAU circuit. There are some familiar faces in this.
Front court is looking really good.
Mark Williams / Theo John
Paolo Banchero / Henry Coleman
Very physical group.
The crazy thing is how much he's remade his body in college. He was a skinny, 6'8", 210lb kid coming out of high school. Now? He is absolutely chiseled and massive, at 6'9", 255lb. A BIG, strong dude.