Jon Scheyer may or may not be done with his roster, but he’s put together a deep and impressive group already. Below is the roster as it would look if the season started Monday.
Returnees
- Caleb Foster: 6-5 | Senior
- Patrick Ngongba: 6-11 | Junior
- Cayden Boozer: 6-4 | Sophomore
- Dame Sarr: 6-8 | Sophomore
- Sebastian Wilkins: 6-8 | Redshirt Freshman
Incoming Transfers
- John Blackwell (Wisconsin): 6-4 | Senior
- Drew Scharnowski (Belmont): 6-9 | Junior
- Jacob Theodosiou (Loyola MD): 6-4 | Junior
Freshman Recruiting Class
- Cameron Williams: 6-11 | Freshman
- Deron Rippey Jr.: 6-2 | Freshman
- Maxime Meyer: 7-1 | Freshman
- Bryson Howard: 6-5 | Freshman
- Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje: 7-0 | Freshman
But look a bit beyond the surface. What did we see in three of Scheyer’s first four seasons?
Injuries limited Duke’s success in the tournament. Whether it was Dereck Lively and Dariq Whitehead in his first season, Caleb Foster in his second year, Cooper Flagg and Maliq Brown
last year, or Foster, Ngongba, and Boozer in the UConn game, injuries have been a real issue.
That’s going to be much less of a problem this year.
Duke has five bigs:
- Meyer, 7-1
- Boumtje Boumtje, 7-0
- Williams, 6-11
- Ngongba, 6-11
- Scharnowski, 6-9
Duke’s also has 6-8 Sebastian Wilkins, who may be more flexible.
As we’ve seen over the Scheyer years, he puts a bigger emphasis on height than Mike Krzyzewski did.
If you group Wilkins with the wings, here’s what we see there:
- Wilkins, 6-8
- Sarr, 6-8
- Howard, 6-5
Finally, in the backcourt, here’s what we see. We’re listing some guys twice because their versatility should allow them to overlap. Rippey is an exception to the focus on height, but with his athleticism, who cares?
- Sarr, 6-8
- Foster, 6-5
- Howard, 6-5
- Boozer, 6-4
- Blackwell, 6-4
- Theodosiou, 6-4
- Rippey, 6-2
And at the point, which Pitt’s Jeff Capel says is the only true position remaining in college basketball, Duke has Boozer, Foster, Rippey, and Blackwell, and it wouldn’t surprise us if Sarr made enough progress to play there in a pinch.
There’s already talk of pushing the tempo, and with such a deep roster, it seems like a basic requirement.
There are a few other things to keep in mind: Meyer and Boumtje Boumtje are bigs for sure, but Meyer is generally expected to take a bit of time, and for all of his talent, Boumtje Boumtje is just 16.
Of course, so were Mike Gminski and Brad Daugherty when they arrived at Duke and UNC in their respective days, and they turned out okay.
Most of us have no idea what Scheyer is thinking with these guys, or what his motivations are, but if he’s frustrated with injuries, well, next year’s team has a much wider margin of error.
One last note: you could make a lot of arguments about how many captains Duke will have next year, but you could also make one that Foster should be the only one. He’s certainly earned it.
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