2025 Men's Basketball Recruiting

superdave said:
Yes, starting April 8th.

Getting back to the class of 2025 - Is Cayden Boozer likely to start?

#18 in RSCI. If neither Proctor or Foster is back, then I assume he starts but we'd also bring in a portal guard.

Does anyone who has seen him play have a strong opinion about fit and how big a role we should expect next year?
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He's not a Tyus Jones type PG, it appears to me that his first inclination is to look for his shot.

His highlights don't scream day-one starter to me, but said the same about Kon, so who knows. Given how Foster has basically flopped this year - we'd be in trouble without Sion - I suspect Jon will hedge his bets again and find a starter-quality PG from the portal. With our 2 best passers headed to the draft, I'd love a pass-first PG.
 
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superdave said:
We are gonna need Foster in a big way between now and April. Every year there's a guy called on to step up when other stuff isnt working.

Keep cheering him on!
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I hope so but my gut tells me that once the tournament starts and we play tough teams Jon's rotation is gonna be the 5 starters and Brown/Gillis. I think if we hypothetically play Louisville in the ACC championship it will expand to 8 with one of Evans/Foster being the choice.
 
superdave said:
Yes, starting April 8th.

Getting back to the class of 2025 - Is Cayden Boozer likely to start?

#18 in RSCI. If neither Proctor or Foster is back, then I assume he starts but we'd also bring in a portal guard.

Does anyone who has seen him play have a strong opinion about fit and how big a role we should expect next year?
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I talked about this upthread, but I do think he's good enough to start. He's big and physical, 6'4" 200+ pounds. Scheyer loves big PGs. He's played with Cayden forever, so their 2 man game is already excellent. Put some wings around them who can play off that, and the offense is already in a really good spot from day 1.
 
bluedevilwildcats said:
He's not a Tyus Jones type PG, it appears to me that his first inclination is to look for his shot.... I suspect Jon will hedge his bets again and find a starter-quality PG from the portal. With our 2 best passers headed to the draft, I'd love a pass-first PG.
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Because his Columbus, FL team has several good scorers, not just his brother Cam, Cayden seems much closer to pass-first. Admittedly, I base this mostly on the 2 tv games a couple of weeks back and a vaguer memory from a couple of their games in the Boozers’ junior season. If neither Proctor nor Foster returns, however, I’d agree that Scheyer will look to the portal for at least a backup PG.

My view is closer to kAzE’s:
kAzE said:
I talked about this upthread, but I do think he's good enough to start. He's big and physical, 6'4" 200+ pounds. Scheyer loves big PGs. He's played with Cayden forever, so their 2 man game is already excellent. Put some wings around them who can play off that, and the offense is already in a really good spot from day 1.
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cato said:
The best part about being on Duke Island is that there is always space for more Duke fans.

Also, I’ve been here since I was 8. Not sure I want to add up how many years that been, but I know it’s a good place to be.
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Yeh, it's Duke island. I've been a Duke fan since the Howard Hurt and Carroll Youngkin seasons.

GoDuke!
 
Look at this past offseason. Sean Stewart a lot of people were upset to see go and I was one of them but at the end of the day Sean wanted a gurantee and would you rather have Maliq or Sean Stewart?
 
jv001 said:
Yeh, it's Duke island. I've been a Duke fan since the Howard Hurt and Carroll Youngkin seasons.

GoDuke!
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gumbomoop said:
Because his Columbus, FL team has several good scorers, not just his brother Cam, Cayden seems much closer to pass-first. Admittedly, I base this mostly on the 2 tv games a couple of weeks back and a vaguer memory from a couple of their games in the Boozers’ junior season. If neither Proctor nor Foster returns, however, I’d agree that Scheyer will look to the portal for at least a backup PG.

My view is closer to kAzE’s:
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I’m not sure that Boozer/Foster would be a national championship contending backcourt. I agree that we hit the portal for a guard, even if both are at Duke next year.
 
jv001 said:
I agree, but finding another Sion will be very difficult. He's spoiled me. Getting a good distributer of the ball and good on the ball defender isn't going to be easy.
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kshepinthehouse said:
Yea we caught lightning a bottle this year and every decision hit. I feel it’s going to be impossible to recreate this team.
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-jk said:
There’s just so much variability year to year these days.
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Last summer, AJ Storr was easily one of the top guards in the portal. He had been a 17 ppg stud at Wisconsin. His skills would surely translate to any other team in the country. Kansas paid close to a million bucks to get him.

He's averaging 6.5ppg and cannot hit the broad side of the barn from the perimeter. He played just 7 minutes against UCF last week... he followed that up by playing just 6 minutes against Baylor.

247 had ranked him as the #4 player in the portal.

Those same rankings had Sion James as the #61 portal prospect.

Team building... rocket science might be easier.
 
JGDUKE2008 said:
Look at this past offseason. Sean Stewart a lot of people were upset to see go and I was one of them but at the end of the day Sean wanted a gurantee and would you rather have Maliq or Sean Stewart?
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Also short term memory lapse. Plenty of folks on the board weren’t thrilled with the combination of letting 7 go plus the portal additions.
 
JasonEvans said:
Last summer, AJ Storr was easily one of the top guards in the portal. He had been a 17 ppg stud at Wisconsin. His skills would surely translate to any other team in the country. Kansas paid close to a million bucks to get him.

He's averaging 6.5ppg and cannot hit the broad side of the barn from the perimeter. He played just 7 minutes against UCF last week... he followed that up by playing just 6 minutes against Baylor.

247 had ranked him as the #4 player in the portal.

Those same rankings had Sion James as the #61 portal prospect.

Team building... rocket science might be easier.
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Isn’t it interesting that Jon’s approach has been to recruit elite talent out of high school and then fill in role players with skills and experience that are more reliably transferable. Yes, there is still some fortune involved in people like Malik and Sion continuing to play at the high level they did at their prior programs, but if defense travels on a team basis, it makes sense that defense also travels on an individual basis.

I think Duke just might have made a decent decision when they picked Scheyer.
 
cato said:
Yes, there is still some fortune involved in people like Malik and Sion continuing to play at the high level they did at their prior programs, but if defense travels on a team basis, it makes sense that defense also travels on an individual basis.
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Sion's dRating his last year at Tulane was 109.0 (the worst dRating on last year's Duke team was 104.6). Acknowledging that defensive stats have a strong team component (he had the third best dRating of Tulane's rotation players, but still, he was only third on a bad mid-major), and not knowing whether his high level of play this year was due to "fortune" or outstanding player assessment skills by Duke's coaching staff, I still don't think it was particularly obvious he'd be such a good defender at Duke (90.3 dRating so far).

(note: if you'd rather look at DBPM, the results are similar)

That said, I'm delighted in how well he's played so far this season. I'm just saying it might have been less predictable than you're suggesting.
 
Kedsy said:
Sion's dRating his last year at Tulane was 109.0 (the worst dRating on last year's Duke team was 104.6). Acknowledging that defensive stats have a strong team component (he had the third best dRating of Tulane's rotation players, but still, he was only third on a bad mid-major), and not knowing whether his high level of play this year was due to "fortune" or outstanding player assessment skills by Duke's coaching staff, I still don't think it was particularly obvious he'd be such a good defender at Duke (90.3 dRating so far).

(note: if you'd rather look at DBPM, the results are similar)

That said, I'm delighted in how well he's played so far this season. I'm just saying it might have been less predictable than you're suggesting.
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Also worth noting that Tulane reportedly played zone, making Sion’s emergence as a top notch defender even more surprising.
 
Expecting Jon to bring in a Sion, Maliq, or Mason every year is unrealistic. That said, Jon has done very well in the portal (small sample size). You must be doing something right when Jacob Grandison (a solid player) is your worst transfer.
 
azzefkram said:
Expecting Jon to bring in a Sion, Maliq, or Mason every year is unrealistic. That said, Jon has done very well in the portal (small sample size). You must be doing something right when Jacob Grandison (a solid player) is your worst transfer.
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Much less a Sion and Maliq and Mason…

To complement a Flagg and a Kon.

Now, of course every team will be different, but it seems like this year is truly Jon’s vision for how he wants to build a team - putting aside recruits versus returners versus transfers, it’s about competitiveness, defense, and earning time by demonstrating those qualities in practice. Recruits and potential transfers will understand that and we should therefore attract players who want to earn time, and be a less compelling spot for players just looking for a feature role and guaranteed playing time. All good with that…
 
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