Patrick Baldwin Jr. picks Wisconsin-Milwaukee and his father over Duke Basketball

After an interesting recruiting period, to say the least, Patrick Baldwin jr. has officially made a decision, and he is not heading to Durham to play for the Duke Blue Devils, instead, he is heading to Wisconsin-Milwaukee to play for his father.

Baldwin’s recruitment took a very long time before ultimately announcing his decision today, on May 12th, and it was a recruitment that nobody was quite sure about. The three schools Baldwin was considering were Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Duke, and Georgetown.

Leading up to the decision, Duke had the third overall recruiting class, Georgetown had the 14th overall recruiting class, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee was nowhere near any of the rankings.

Baldwin is the fifth-ranked overall player in the Class of 2021, and the top-ranked small forward, which is huge for Wisconsin-Milwaukee, as they obviously are never in the running for any big-name players such as Patrick Baldwin jr., but because his dad is the head coach, Baldwin decided to play for the Panthers.

I won’t get into whether or not that is the right decision, I will simply state the fact that Baldwin could’ve been playing just about every game on national television, playing with a team with a legitimate chance to win a national championship, and in turn, giving himself exposure to make that next step, but instead he is going to play for Wisconsin-Milwaukee and his father, a team that has made the NCAA Tournament only four times in program history.

Duke still has the third-ranked recruiting class in the nation without Baldwin, including the following players:

• Paolo Banchero, third-ranked overall player, top-ranked power forward
• AJ Griffin, 13th ranked overall player, third-ranked small forward
• Trevor Keels, 20th ranked overall player, second-ranked shooting guard
• Jaylen Blakes, 101st ranked overall player, 16th ranked point guard

In addition to that, the Blue Devils also added three-star power forward transfer from Marquette, Theo John. All that, PLUS key returnees in Mark Williams, Wendell Moore, Jeremy Roach, and Joey Baker, and you have a team capable of making a deep run in March/April.

Duke missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1995 this past year but based on their recruiting class plus their returnees, I wouldn’t get too used to that.

Even though Duke didn’t get Baldwin jr. as he decided to play in the Horizon League, here is what I would expect Duke’s starting five to look like next season:

• PG: Jeremy Roach, Sophomore
• SG: Trevor Keels, Freshman
• SF: AJ Griffin, Freshman
• PF: Paolo Banchero, Freshman
• C: Mark Williams, Sophomore

This is a GREAT starting five, but it’s also a very young starting five, and that’s because Duke is, for the most part, a very young team. The Blue Devils have only ONE player who has played an NCAA Tournament game with the Blue Devils, and that’s Joey Baker.

Even though Duke missed out on Patrick Baldwin jr. which would have given them the top-ranked recruiting class, I would still expect them to be in a great spot for the 2021-22 season.