2025 Men's Basketball Recruiting

If there's anybody who could handpick his class this year, it's Danny Hurley. He has notably not prioritized the big name OADs.

Three commited recruits: SG Mullins (16), CG Adams (22), PF Reibe (27). Recruiting multi-year guys who fit his system.
 
It appears Shelton Henderson and Acaden Lewis are both making their college decisions on Nov 2nd. Shelton at 1:30pm and Acaden at 2pm EST. Would love to see them both rocking Duke apparel during their announcements!

I'm not seeing a time for Henderson, though it might be behind a paywall. Never mind, I see it now. Henderson posted the time himself:


Lewis is announcing on the YouTube page of On3 Recruits:


If there's anybody who could handpick his class this year, it's Danny Hurley. He has notably not prioritized the big name OADs.

Three commited recruits: SG Mullins (16), CG Adams (22), PF Reibe (27). Recruiting multi-year guys who fit his system.

Adam Zagoria made a weird statement about UConn today:


It's at least a weird time to say the Huskies are done with domestic recruiting. UConn is, by all outward appearances, a contender for RSCI #6 Meleek Thomas (one of 7 finalists), #23 Nikola Bundalo (one of 4 finalists), and #36 Acaden Lewis (one of 3 finalists). Pittsburgh Sports Now is saying that recent predictions have Thomas going to Arkansas, but as we've learned, predictions aren't everything.

Zagoria's report leaves an opening for Hurley's continued pursuit of Australian prospect Jacob Furphy, who is somehow not related to former Kansas player Johnny Furphy.
 
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Maybe good news for our Lewis recruitment. Hurley trying to signal that he didn't lose another recruit to Duke but that he's just done? 🤓
 
Maybe good news for our Lewis recruitment. Hurley trying to signal that he didn't lose another recruit to Duke but that he's just done? 🤓
The competition for Acaden has been Kentucky for a while now. UConn getting Adams and Mullins make them a pretty unlikely destination for yet another scoring guard.
 
The competition for Acaden has been Kentucky for a while now.

Yeah, I mentioned before that Acaden Lewis and Caleb Wilson have talked about playing together on the same team next year. If that's true, and if you believe that the transitive property of math applies to recruiting, then this social media post is quite telling:


I don't know. Can Duke make another last-minute push? It might be time for Cayden Boozer to do his Tre Jones impersonation again, and call up Lewis.
 
23. Nikola Bundalo (6-9 PF): 4 finalists are Connecticut, Michigan State, Ohio State, and UNC

I don't know what to make of this: Nikola Bundalo, down to 4 finalists, might be reopening his recruitment?


When it comes to UNC, "probably not" is a good policy, but "definitely not" is an even better one.

If this is true, then what happened?

NIL? "Probably not." Years of skepticism have trained me to follow the money, in this case the bogeyman NIL, but I operate under the assumption that all public universities in the Big Ten and SEC have money to burn, so that wouldn't explain why he soured on the Spartans and Buckeyes.

Positional conflict because another recruit signed first? Perhaps in the case of Michigan State -- they've got #59 Cam Ward and #73 Jordan Scott, both 6-7 forwards. But things are wide open at that position for the other 3 schools -- UNC and OSU have each signed one guard, while UConn has two guards and a center.

Second thoughts about an eliminated team? I could see that. He had 9 semifinalists, I guess, removing Kansas, Kentucky, Pittsburgh, Texas, and Xavier. If there's mutual interest again, we'll know.

Outside influence? This also sounds plausible. Either there's a new suitor, or more innocently, there's another recruit/signee who is courting Bundalo to be part of a package deal. (And with a name like Bundalo, how could he not want a package deal?)

As for Duke, anything's possible, but they never offered Bundalo, have received frontcourt commitments from Cameron Boozer and Nikolas Khamenia, and have prioritized other forwards in this 2025 recruiting cycle.

Still, it would be interesting to have a Nikola and a Nikolas next year. Player introductions in Cameron might look like this:

 
Hard to imagine us getting both but if we did, it seems like it would lock us in as the #1 recruiting class, no matter what Nate Ament ultimately decides.
I don't think Lewis is now destined for Duke, but who knows these days? Two Boozers, Henderson and Ament and Khamenia look to be the desired class....
 
Who’s next?

It appears Shelton Henderson and Acaden Lewis are both making their college decisions on Nov 2nd. Shelton at 1:30pm and Acaden at 2pm EST. Would love to see them both rocking Duke apparel during their announcements!

Ah, the old time zone twist. I suspected Henderson's announcement was 1:30 locally (Central Time), but I wanted confirmation first.


I'll post the video link when it becomes available.

So it looks like Acaden Lewis announces at 2pm ET and Shelton Henderson announces at 2:30pm ET this Saturday.

acadenlewisannouncement.jpg
 
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Saw posted on another board that Jon flew in to visit Nate Ament this morning after Calipari was with him this weekend. Maybe that recruitment is heating up? Sounds like Ament is still a priority for this class.
 
Saw posted on another board that Jon flew in to visit Nate Ament this morning after Calipari was with him this weekend. Maybe that recruitment is heating up? Sounds like Ament is still a priority for this class.

There are other boards?

I saw this too -- Dushawn London of 247 Sports reported it -- and I would draw the same conclusion about Nate Ament continuing to be a priority.

 
There are other boards?

I saw this too -- Dushawn London of 247 Sports reported it -- and I would draw the same conclusion about Nate Ament continuing to be a priority.


It certainly looks like Duke is continuing to actively pursue Nate Ament, and hopefully the groundwork that Coach Scheyer has put in will pay off, Duke appears to have identified Ament as a target relatively early in this recruiting cycle and this is another instance where Coach Scheyer has identified a player before he shoots up the recruiting rankings and hopefully that loyalty will be rewarded (we started focusing on Ament in the summer of 2023 when he was rated around #25 in the class, offered him on Sept. 16, 2023, just a few days after 247 published their post-Summer rankings on Sept. 13, moving him up to #13, and over the course of the next year he's now moved up to #4).

Piecing together the timelines and rankings as reported by the combination of 247 and ZagsBlog, it looks like of the current most widely-reported contenders for Ament (Duke, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisville, Texas, Notre Dame and Kansas St.; I think Virginia's got to be out due to the Coaching change) that Duke has been recruiting Ament the longest and with as much intensity as anyone else:

Offers/Visits
9/1/23: Offer - Virginia
9/16/23: Unofficial Visit – Duke
9/16/23: Offer - Duke
Jan. 2024: Unofficial Visit – Virginia
4/23/24: Offer - Louisville
6/17/24: Offers - Kentucky, Notre Dame
6/21/24: Offer - Kansas St.
6/28/24: Offers - Texas, Tennessee, U.Conn, North Carolina
8/28/24: Official Visit (scheduled but delayed and not yet re-set) - Kentucky
9/4/24: Coach Visit – Kentucky
9/14/24: Official Visit (scheduled but delayed and my guess it is never happens) – Virginia
9/27/24: Official Visit - Texas
10/4/24: Official Visit – Duke
10/9/24: Coach Visit - Kentucky
10/11/24: Official Visit – Louisville
10/19/24: Official Visit – Tennessee
10/27/24: Coach Visit - Arkansas
10/28/24: Coach Visit - Duke
11/9/24: Official Visit – Notre Dame
2/11/25: Official Visit – Kansas St.

Maybe I'm getting my hopes up too high, but of all the players in this cycle, Ament's feels most like a traditional "Duke recruitment" where Duke zeroes in on a player early and remains the favorite throughout the process. Obviously, we'll see.


https://www.zagsblog.com/2024/10/16/nate-ament-signs-nil-deal-with-reebok/

https://www.zagsblog.com/2024/08/21...d-heading-into-the-resumed-recruiting-period/


 
Can Duke NIL afford two top 5 guys in a class along with all the other 4 and 5 stars on the roster? I have no idea.

But if we can, it's a VERY good sign for Scheyer's opportunity to create a program that is in the hunt for a final four every season.
 
Can Duke NIL afford two top 5 guys in a class along with all the other 4 and 5 stars on the roster? I have no idea.

But if we can, it's a VERY good sign for Scheyer's opportunity to create a program that is in the hunt for a final four every season.

I'm pretty confident Duke NIL can afford anything it wants in basketball. I presume we have no shortage of deep pocketed basketball supporters. I know Jason has alluded to a small group of committed supporters, but I suspect if we needed to do something above and beyond we could.

That said, do we need to do something above and beyond? It seems that Jon's approach has been to not get involved with bidding wars and instead try to surgically choose his players that want to buy in and leverage the Duke brand/platform. Can it persist? I hope so.

- Chillin
 
I'm pretty confident Duke NIL can afford anything it wants in basketball. I presume we have no shortage of deep pocketed basketball supporters. I know Jason has alluded to a small group of committed supporters, but I suspect if we needed to do something above and beyond we could.
Well, I have been told there is most assuredly a budget and that the Duke NIL operation is not a blank check. I believe that the small group of folks who have been doing it so far would like to get more (rich) people on board. They want to keep it small but need it to be bigger than it currently is.

That said, do we need to do something above and beyond? It seems that Jon's approach has been to not get involved with bidding wars and instead try to surgically choose his players that want to buy in and leverage the Duke brand/platform. Can it persist? I hope so.
The above is absolutely true. There are kids Duke talks to who want to know about NIL first and foremost and who want to play for the highest bidder. For the most part, Duke has avoided kids like that and tries to explain that Duke offers more than just a check from some boosters. Duke is a major leader in helping to arrange real sponsorship opportunities, not just pay for play from boosters. Kids who really become Duke targets are given significant presentations that talk about the long-term value of being part of The Brotherhood and the Duke alumni network. The presentation also talks about the value to a player's brand in being part of the biggest program in college basketball.

I have seen estimates that Duke is somewhere around 10-15th in terms of NIL payouts... and yet we seem to sign the top recruiting class in the land pretty much every year. We routinely find ourselves up against programs that are offering more and yet Duke wins the battles it wants to win almost every time. It is quite clear that Jon Scheyer and the rest of the folks involved in all this have made it clear that they offer something more than just dollars to recruits.

I hope AJ Dybantsa enjoys his time at BYU playing in relative obscurity.
 
Well, I have been told there is most assuredly a budget and that the Duke NIL operation is not a blank check. I believe that the small group of folks who have been doing it so far would like to get more (rich) people on board. They want to keep it small but need it to be bigger than it currently is.


The above is absolutely true. There are kids Duke talks to who want to know about NIL first and foremost and who want to play for the highest bidder. For the most part, Duke has avoided kids like that and tries to explain that Duke offers more than just a check from some boosters. Duke is a major leader in helping to arrange real sponsorship opportunities, not just pay for play from boosters. Kids who really become Duke targets are given significant presentations that talk about the long-term value of being part of The Brotherhood and the Duke alumni network. The presentation also talks about the value to a player's brand in being part of the biggest program in college basketball.

I have seen estimates that Duke is somewhere around 10-15th in terms of NIL payouts... and yet we seem to sign the top recruiting class in the land pretty much every year. We routinely find ourselves up against programs that are offering more and yet Duke wins the battles it wants to win almost every time. It is quite clear that Jon Scheyer and the rest of the folks involved in all this have made it clear that they offer something more than just dollars to recruits.

I hope AJ Dybantsa enjoys his time at BYU playing in relative obscurity.

Thanks, Jason. That's all as expected.

I'd note that having a budget and not operating as a blank check do not necessarily mean we can't do more if we need to. But to your point, it's also not in line with Jon's apparent recruiting strategy so somewhat moot.

- Chillin
 
I hope AJ Dybantsa enjoys his time at BYU playing in relative obscurity.

I was about to write up a comparison to Kevin Durant in terms of one-and-done impact, with numerous individual honors and a solid-but-not-spectacular team performance (NCAAT 4 seed, loss in 2nd round) that would put Texas on the map as a perennial power.

But then I looked at that 2006-2007 Texas season in context, and that's not really what happened with the team. Durant was one of 4 freshmen, all of whom eventually played in the NBA, but Rick Barnes did not capture lightning in a bottle and take advantage. If anything, it was kind of an off-year; Texas was an Elite 8 team the season before AND the season after Durant.

Basketball Reference includes RSCI prospect rankings for that Longhorns roster:

Kevin Durant, 6-9 F (#2 -- behind Greg Oden)
Damion James, 6-7 F (#15)
DJ Augustin, 6-0 G (#29)
Dexter Pittman, 6-10 C (#82)

BYU has no 2025 commitments yet, but could still re-create something similar. The Cougars are finalists for 3 players in the RSCI Top 100, and could add a fourth.

AJ Dybantsa, 6-8 F (#1)
Xavion Staton, 7-0 C (#35)
JJ Mandaquit, 6-1 G (#55)

As for "relative obscurity," I'll grant that the Big 12 is probably a half-tier below the ACC in terms of TV exposure -- a lot of their games are on ESPN+ -- and being in the Mountain Time Zone has not been historically beneficial. I'm trying to think of any precedent of a big star who lives 2 hours behind Eastern time, whether at BYU or Arizona or wherever. Jimmer Fredette had a lot of hype, but did we actually see him in a lot of nationally televised games? Deandre Ayton? Cody Williams?

Also remember that Chris Burgess is an assistant coach at BYU now, sliding over from Utah. I hope he's part of something interesting there.

If only Duke were using cutting edge technology, like Skype. That would land the best recruits that so brand-conscious.

Steve Martin's Inspector Clouseau: "Right now the killer is being surrounded by a web of deduction, forensic science, and the latest in technology, such as two-way radios and e-mail."

I gave you a Wow, but for posts like this, DBR really needs a faceplant emoji.
 
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