NCAA Basketball: Analyzing the key 6 teams for 5-star forward Jarin Stevenson

Duke Blue Devils

2023 class option

In a hilarious contrast to a team like Alabama, Duke has so much frontcourt depth that five-star forward Mackenzie Mgbako had to de-commit and eventually pick Indiana. Two of the program’s five-star freshmen decided to stay, including Mark Mitchell and returning leading scorer, Kyle Filipowski.

Big man Ryan Young is back to get minutes at the five-spot, while two more five-star frontcourt prospects are joining in Sean Stewart and TJ Power. In short, Stevenson has no real reason to commit to Duke and be the 13th man on the roster, unless he just wants to be on the team for a likely preseason No. 1 squad.

2024 class option

The following year with Duke would make much more sense. The odds of both Filipowski and Mitchell being around are close to 0 by then and who knows how good both Power and Stewart are with the program. The team already has a pair of 2024 commits in top-50 shooting guard Darren Harris, along with five-star wing, Isaiah Evans.

The Blue Devils don’t have a frontcourt commit yet for 2024 and Stevenson would be the first. However, he’d better be sure that he’d only stick around for one year, as top-3 overall prospects and targets (Cooper Flagg and Cameron Boozer) may be coming to take both the spotlight and frontcourt minutes from Stevenson.