There was a time when people said Duke didn’t produce big men. Seems a long time ago.
In recent seasons, Duke has produced Mark Williams, Dereck Lively, Kyle Filipowski and most recently Khaman Maluach.
All of those but Williams came during Jon Scheyer’s time as head coach and our guess is that he may have been a champion of Williams too, who of course played for his predecessor, Mike Krzyzewski.
Scheyer has quickly revealed a preference for bouncy big men who can patrol the lane on defense and get
high percentage shots offensively. So far, Filipowski is the only one who has a serious outside game.
So what’s he working with this year?
Well, no one like those guys – and that’s fine.
Duke has three big players this year – Maliq Brown, Patrick Ngongba and Ifeanyi Ufochukwu.
When he transferred to Duke from Syracuse, Brown said “[I]t’s always been my dream school. When I was a kid I always wanted to go to Duke. I got the opportunity and I hopped on it.”
We first realized he was pretty good when Syracuse visited Durham in his freshman year. Brown had a monster game, with 26 points on 11-16/1-2 from the floor and seven rebounds. It was a dominant performance to say the least.
But we didn’t realize at that time what a tremendous defender he was. Brown is just disruptive. He has great hands, great instincts, and he gets into passing lanes. If you are handling the ball near him, you’d better be careful.
He missed 13 games with injuries last season though, starting with a toe injury, then a knee injury and finally two shoulder injuries. We saw enough of him though to understand the impact he could have on Duke. The guy is a tremendous defender. Players are only in the air for a few seconds at a time and when they’re on the ground? Brown is like a shark and the ball is his prey. If he can stay healthy, he could be the National Defensive Player of the Year.
Ngongba was a revelation last season. We didn’t expect him to play much. As a high school player, he struggled with conditioning and missed his senior year entirely with a foot injury and he was third on the depth chart behind Maluach and Brown.
When Brown got hurt though, Ngongba got his chance. And when he did, he really delivered.
He wasn’t able to loom over opponents like Maluach, but he grew up in a basketball family, with both parents having played at George Washington. His mother went on to play in the WNBA and a coaching career, so in a nutshell, he’s been coached his entire life.
It showed when we got to see him play.
Ngongba first caught our eye with a gorgeous pass to a cutter for a layup. And what we loved about it was that clearly it wasn’t something out of his range. He was very comfortable doing it and did it quickly and instinctively.
As the season went on, it was clear that while his athleticism wasn’t eye popping, it was fine. What’s special about Ngongba is his mind for the game. There are plenty of great athletes who can’t stick in the NBA but if you can play at a high level, you have a shot at a long career there. It’s too early to say that for sure about Ngongba, but we love what he showed last year.
On the negative side, it took him a couple of years to commit to fitness and he has had serious issues with his feet. Assuming all of that is fine going forward, his future is very bright.
It’s interesting because with Brown and Ngongba, Duke has two radically different big men. One is a superb defender and the other is a versatile offensive performer. And then there’s Ufochukwu.
Ufochukwu is Duke’s third transfer from Rice, following Sean Obi and current Blue Devil Cameron Sheffield. He was also an AAU teammate of Caleb Foster with Team Curry.
At 6-11, he’s a bit of a mystery to most fans. He didn’t play a lot at Rice, redshirting last year. He got into 16 games two years ago, averaging 3.3 minutes, so basically garbage time.
Other reports have said he’s fairly athletic though and we’re sure Foster was asked about him when Duke was considering him, and presumably he was pleased with having Ufochukwu on his side again.
Scheyer has played the portal on two levels: first, for picking up key rotational pieces like Mason Gillis and Sion Love, but secondarily, for picking up experienced depth. Aside from Ufochukwu, this year’s team features Sheffield, as mentioned previously, and Jack Scott, who moves over from Princeton.
Having three experienced guys is invaluable when you’re bringing in lots of freshmen. They can help with stations and instilling a work ethic, but just as importantly, they can help with off-the-court stuff. It’s an intriguing tendency for Scheyer to recruit these guys and we’re sure that Ufochukwu’s character plays a major role in the decision to bring him onboard.
Finally, we didn’t really talk about Sebastian Wilkins here, but maybe we should.
In the Krzyzewski era, he’s a guy who might have emerged later in the season if there was a crucial role that wasn’t being performed properly. Scheyer has a clear preference for size inside and at 6-8, Wilkins is a bit smallish as a center for the still-young Duke coach. However, he’s a strong player and could carve out a role, particularly if there are injuries to either Brown or Ngongba.
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