2026 Men's Basketball Recruiting

My view is Jon and other coaches notice these kids blowing up the same time recruiting services do. It just sometimes takes a few weeks or months for the recruiting services to update. Kohl is one of those guys blowing up right now.
 
SkyBrickey said:
My view is Jon and other coaches notice these kids blowing up the same time recruiting services do. It just sometimes takes a few weeks or months for the recruiting services to update. Kohl is one of those guys blowing up right now.
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Kohl is definitely looking more like anthracite than bituminous, subbituminous or lignite.
 
azzefkram said:
Jon's had his misses (haven't we all)...
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Does he? I mean, how many guys has he really, really wanted and missed on recently?

2025 - He got everyone he really wanted. He kinda wanted Ament, but it wasn't like a "must have" kind of recruitment. We made an offer and a pitch to the kid but when it began to turn away from us, Jon didn't exactly sweat it and pivoted pretty quickly to Coward (who appeared to be a far better fit anyway... dammit).

2024 - Floury Bidunga and VJ Edgecombe were sorta misses. I was never sure exactly how Edgecombe fit given what we already had in the fold. Bidunga was a miss. We wanted him and were thiiiiiis close to closing the deal before Kansas flipped him at the last minute with a monster NIL offer. Of course, that just opened the door to Manman. So, it was a win for Duke in the end.

2023 - Would anyone consider Matas Buzelis a miss? He went pro. Duke was after him but it never felt like a recruit that Jon really needed.

2022 - JJ Starling?

There is no question that Jon is the best recruiter in the country right now. Frankly, no one else is all that close.
 
JasonEvans said:
Does he? I mean, how many guys has he really, really wanted and missed on recently?

2025 - He got everyone he really wanted. He kinda wanted Ament, but it wasn't like a "must have" kind of recruitment. We made an offer and a pitch to the kid but when it began to turn away from us, Jon didn't exactly sweat it and pivoted pretty quickly to Coward (who appeared to be a far better fit anyway... dammit).

2024 - Floury Bidunga and VJ Edgecombe were sorta misses. I was never sure exactly how Edgecombe fit given what we already had in the fold. Bidunga was a miss. We wanted him and were thiiiiiis close to closing the deal before Kansas flipped him at the last minute with a monster NIL offer. Of course, that just opened the door to Manman. So, it was a win for Duke in the end.

2023 - Would anyone consider Matas Buzelis a miss? He went pro. Duke was after him but it never felt like a recruit that Jon really needed.

2022 - JJ Starling?

There is no question that Jon is the best recruiter in the country right now. Frankly, no one else is all that close.
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Pretty sure the “misses” comment was referring to missing on player evaluation. As in, Sean Stewart and TJ Power. Still TBD on Caleb Foster.

Still he has a pretty darn good hit rate. Of course, when you recruit at the top of the food chain, that will tend to be the case.

But I don’t think he or she meant “misses” as in not getting a commitment.
 
CDu said:
Pretty sure the “misses” comment was referring to missing on player evaluation. As in, Sean Stewart and TJ Power. Still TBD on Caleb Foster.

Still he has a pretty darn good hit rate. Of course, when you recruit at the top of the food chain, that will tend to be the case.

But I don’t think he or she meant “misses” as in not getting a commitment.
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Yep. I'd also include Jaden and, to a lesser degree, Christian. Jon's been fabulous in the portal as well.
 
As others have said, I'll analogize here. Even the best poker players lose hands...all the time.

It is simply table stakes to not hit on every player evaluation. So it's important to recognize the % hit rate appears as high or higher than the top tier player evaluators (coaches, recruitniks, etc).

- Chillin
 
azzefkram said:
Yep. I'd also include Jaden and, to a lesser degree, Christian. Jon's been fabulous in the portal as well.
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I definitely wouldn’t include Reeves and Schutt. They weren’t recruited to be impact players early in their careers. Schutt was a “program guy” who might or might not be expected to contribute as an upperclassman. Reeves was a project big who would serve as a practice body with upside. Both were recruited when Scheyer was trying to restock the roster and needed practice bodies as he had just two returning players. And Schutt did go on to be a P5 program starter in year 3, just not at Duke. Those two weren’t misses. They served their intended purpose. Anything more than that would have been gravy.
 
CDu said:
I definitely wouldn’t include Reeves and Schutt. They weren’t recruited to be impact players early in their careers. Schutt was a “program guy” who might or might not be expected to contribute as an upperclassman. Reeves was a project big who would serve as a practice body with upside. Both were recruited when Scheyer was trying to restock the roster and needed practice bodies as he had just two returning players. And Schutt did go on to be a P5 program starter in year 3, just not at Duke. Those two weren’t misses. They served their intended purpose. Anything more than that would have been gravy.
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We will have to agree to disagree. Yes, they weren't expected to be contributors early but, based on their respective careers to date, neither looks like they would have contributed at Duke. If we are going to count TT and Jordan G as recruiting wins, I think it's fair to count Jaden and Christian as recruiting misses, at least of the low impact variety. As for practice bodies, I think grad transfers would help a very young team more.
 
azzefkram said:
We will have to agree to disagree. Yes, they weren't expected to be contributors early but, based on their respective careers to date, neither looks like they would have contributed at Duke. If we are going to count TT and Jordan G as recruiting wins, I think it's fair to count Jaden and Christian as recruiting misses, at least of the low impact variety. As for practice bodies, I think grad transfers would help a very young team more.
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I agree on your take of Reeves, his offer sheet was not great coming out of high school, but Schutt had a ton of high level offers including Lville, Florida, Michigan State, tOSU, on and on...so I guess I'm saying a lot of schools missed on Schutt (so far anyway)...you can't be right all the time...
 
azzefkram said:
We will have to agree to disagree. Yes, they weren't expected to be contributors early but, based on their respective careers to date, neither looks like they would have contributed at Duke. If we are going to count TT and Jordan G as recruiting wins, I think it's fair to count Jaden and Christian as recruiting misses, at least of the low impact variety. As for practice bodies, I think grad transfers would help a very young team more.
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Yeah, I am not going to agree. Scheyer needed bodies. Reeves was a body. There was never any expectation that he would do more than that. Especially given how late in the game they added him.

And they DID bring in grad transfers. But only so many of those are available each year.

Also, I don’t see any discrepancy in calling Thornton and Goldwire wins and not calling Reeves a miss. When you bring in a long shot, it can’t really be a miss. To take it to an extreme, when you don’t win the lottery, for example, that isn’t a miss. It was the expectation. The expectation was always that Reeves wouldn’t be much more than a practice body.

Schutt was at least slightly closer to being a miss. But even there, he was a recruit outside the top-50. The odds were always against him succeeding at Duke. That tier of recruit rarely cracks the rotation.

I would consider a miss to be more like Power, Whitehead, and Stewart. Those were all top-tier recruits for whom big things were expected/hoped.
 
On3 has updated their 2026 recruiting rankings today -- it's a Top 150. I'll slowly start to pay more attention now that the 2025 recruiting class is wrapping up, and will really get into the swing of things once the first RSCI rankings are released in late summer.


Here are the players with Duke offers:

2. Brandon McCoy Jr (6-5 guard)
3. Christian Collins (6-8 forward)
6. Jordan Smith Jr (6-2 guard)
15. Miikka Muurinen (6-10 forward)
27. Kohl Rosario (6-5 guard)
NR. Luigi Suigo (7-3 center/Italy)

Here are some other ranked prospects who have been mentioned in this thread:

26. Darius Ratliff (6-11 center)
33. Adonis Ratliff (6-10 forward)
46. Austin Goosby (6-5 guard)
 
brevity said:
46. Austin Goosby (6-5 guard)
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brevity said:
On3 has updated their 2026 recruiting rankings today -- it's a Top 150. I'll slowly start to pay more attention now that the 2025 recruiting class is wrapping up, and will really get into the swing of things once the first RSCI rankings are released in late summer.


Here are the players with Duke offers:

2. Brandon McCoy Jr (6-5 guard)
3. Christian Collins (6-8 forward)
6. Jordan Smith Jr (6-2 guard)
15. Miikka Muurinen (6-10 forward)
27. Kohl Rosario (6-5 guard)
NR. Luigi Suigo (7-3 center/Italy)

Here are some other ranked prospects who have been mentioned in this thread:

26. Darius Ratliff (6-11 center)
33. Adonis Ratliff (6-10 forward)
46. Austin Goosby (6-5 guard)
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When did Suigo get an offer? I don’t think 247 agrees
 
budwom said:
When did Suigo get an offer? I don’t think 247 agrees
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Please go to post #138 of this thread. Brief summary: @crote introduced Luigi Suigo in this thread, posting that both 247 and Rivals listed him as having a Duke offer. I relied on Verbal Commits, which says the same thing.

Looking at it now, 247 no longer shows an offer for Suigo, but Rivals and Verbal Commits still do. Suigo's Verbal Commits offers page shows BYU, Duke, Kansas, and Illinois all with the same date: January 20, 2025. This site usually adds information about offers based on announcements made the player himself, but in this case it's possible that it came from a third-party source.

I don't think that source is Rivals, because the Rivals player page for Suigo shows simultaneous offers from Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, and Illinois dated February 18, 2025, plus a standalone offer from UCLA on the same day. (It shows an interest from BYU, but no offer.)

247 does show the same 4 schools as Verbal Commits -- BYU, Duke, Kansas, Illinois -- but the 247 player page shows only an Illinois offer, again on February 18, 2025. So I don't think 247 is the source either.

So who knows? This probably started from some random Italian interview of Suigo dated January 20, 2025.
 
brevity said:
Please go to post #138 of this thread. Brief summary: @crote introduced Luigi Suigo in this thread, posting that both 247 and Rivals listed him as having a Duke offer. I relied on Verbal Commits, which says the same thing.

Looking at it now, 247 no longer shows an offer for Suigo, but Rivals and Verbal Commits still do. Suigo's Verbal Commits offers page shows BYU, Duke, Kansas, and Illinois all with the same date: January 20, 2025. This site usually adds information about offers based on announcements made the player himself, but in this case it's possible that it came from a third-party source.

I don't think that source is Rivals, because the Rivals player page for Suigo shows simultaneous offers from Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, and Illinois dated February 18, 2025, plus a standalone offer from UCLA on the same day. (It shows an interest from BYU, but no offer.)

247 does show the same 4 schools as Verbal Commits -- BYU, Duke, Kansas, Illinois -- but the 247 player page shows only an Illinois offer, again on February 18, 2025. So I don't think 247 is the source either.

So who knows? This probably started from some random Italian interview of Suigo dated January 20, 2025.
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Ya some guys have been known to mistake interest for an offer. We also know a lot of guys like to say Duke is recruiting them when Duke isn’t.
 
Here is some Kohl Rosario content. Okay, a lot.

From League Ready:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1930424159697346776

They say "unranked", but that depends on who you ask, and how recently they've updated.

247: #120
247 Composite: #96
ESPN: NR
On3: #27
On3 Industry: #165
Rivals: NR

College Basketball Scouting has a pair of recent highlight videos for Rosario.

The first video is from April and early May, when he played for Team CP3 (jersey #7, player page) on the Nike EYBL circuit.


The second video is from late May, when he played for U18 Overtime Elite (jersey #13, player page) in the Adidas Next Gen Euroleague U18 tournament in Abu Dhabi. (This was the same tournament that fellow 2026 prospect Luigi Suigo played.)


If you'd rather watch full replays, Euroleague Basketball livestreamed all three rounds of their U18 tournament.

May 22: Real Madrid 101, Overtime Elite 87 (box score, full replay -- start around the 7:05:00 mark)
May 23: Pole France 110, Overtime Elite 75 (box score, full replay -- start around the 6:50:00 mark)
May 24: Overtime Elite 113, Žalgiris Kaunas 89 (box score, full replay -- again, start around the 6:50:00 mark)

And if you'd rather just watch one of these, Rosario was 10-for-10 in the field (6-for-6 from three) and scored 30 in the last game.
 
Brevity is the man! His content is (chef's kiss) and yet I just have to say...
brevity said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1930424159697346776
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Pretty useless highlight video...

One cherry pick, uncontested dunk (though it was a reverse dunk, and was done with ease)
One badly obscured corner 3 where we cannot even see if he is guarded or what his form looks like
One drive where it looks like he might have walked (some refs would have called it, I think)
And one corner 3 that bounces hard off the rim but luckily goes in after hitting the top of the backboard

Ha!!
 
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