Duke’s Depth Next Season Is Going To Be A Huge Asset

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

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

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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:

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.

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If you group Wilkins with the wings, here’s what we see there:

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?

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.

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There are a few other things to keep in mind: Meyer and Boumtje Boumtje are…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/duke-depth-next-season-going-115800627.html

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Publish date : 2026-05-03 11:58:00

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