2025 Men's Basketball Recruiting

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.
Jason with the timely post. Some relevant news. Flagg is now the first college player to sign with Gatorade.

 
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.
Seems to me that this will approach will work just fine for likely one-and-done NBA prospects (or those who see themselves that way) as long as we keep putting a steady stream of Tatums, Bancheros, and Flaggs into the league.

The argument to recruits will start to fall flat, though, if we go through a period like we did pre-2011 where there was a perception that Duke guys peaked in college. For those of us who like to root for Duke guys in the NBA almost as much as watching Duke, there will be an increasingly tight connection between success in both venues.

It also means we could do comparatively worse with top recruits who are not perceived as top NBA prospects, and are more likely to stay in college (collecting NIL checks) for multiple years. But it's always been a fool's errand to predict which players will excel in college without climbing NBA draft boards.
 
Believe this should read first male college player to sign with Gatorade... Caitlin Clark's endorsement with them began during her time at Iowa, right?

Yes to Caitlin, no to Cooper. ESPN reported on Clark's deal with Gatorade last December:


National player of the year Caitlin Clark has signed with Gatorade, becoming the fourth collegiate athlete and second women's basketball player to join its roster.

Gatorade's other collegiate athlete signees are UConn guard Paige Bueckers (the 2021 women's basketball national player of the year), Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Penn State running back Nick Singleton.
 
“So it looks like Acaden Lewis announces at 2pm ET and Shelton Henderson announces at 2:30pm ET this Saturday”

That sort of has the whiff of coordination. Like maybe they want to go to the same school. Of their respective final three schools, is there any overlap?
(A: yes there is!)
 
“So it looks like Acaden Lewis announces at 2pm ET and Shelton Henderson announces at 2:30pm ET this Saturday”

That sort of has the whiff of coordination. Like maybe they want to go to the same school. Of their respective final three schools, is there any overlap?
(A: yes there is!)
Seems purely coincidental to me. One is announcing via On3, the other via 247. Different networks, different time slots.
 
“So it looks like Acaden Lewis announces at 2pm ET and Shelton Henderson announces at 2:30pm ET this Saturday”

That sort of has the whiff of coordination. Like maybe they want to go to the same school. Of their respective final three schools, is there any overlap?
(A: yes there is!)
different schools.
 
ESPN's SportsCenter Next released an All-Access video yesterday of Acaden Lewis discussing Duke, Connecticut, and Kentucky with his family.


They cover a lot of topics -- maybe too many, if you start counting all the tea leaves -- and so it's hard to get a strong read on where he's leaning. (Which is what you might expect.) He said that he has a better handle of next year's roster situation and style of play with Connecticut and Kentucky. Aside from Mark Pope telling him that he's pursuing a 4-man recruiting class, I don't know if I can glean any breaking news here. It's all impressions, and Lewis is very diplomatic.
 
Here we go: On3 is reporting that Chance Mallory is decommitting from Virginia.



The nation’s No. 6 ranked point guard chose the Cavaliers over Virginia Tech, but also received offers from Tennessee, Miami, Clemson, Villanova, and more.

Mallory, a 5-foot-9 senior at St Anne’s-Belfield School (VA), will now reopen his recruitment and look for a new home.

It's the standard "It's not you, it's me" and "We can still be friends" and "Who knows, maybe we'll be together again".
 
BYU has no 2025 commitments yet...

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.

One day later and BYU gets its first commitment -- from the Burgess family.


Burgess committed to BYU after visiting BYU over the weekend. Illinois was his other finalist. A consensus top 150 player in the class, Burgess is rated 4 stars by 247 Sports and ESPN. His dad Josh and mom Ashleigh both played basketball for BYU. His uncle Chris Burgess is a current BYU assistant.

Chamberlain has told me he plans to serve a LDS mission before enrolling in school, meaning he would join a program in 2027.
 
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