Duke Blue Devils - A-
Following an incredible regular season and ACC Tournament, the Duke Blue Devils looked to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. After some dominant performances they found themselves in the Final 4 going up against the Houston Cougars. After controlling the entire game, they let it slip away from them late, losing 67-70. The disappointing loss came with questions regarding the roster for next season as Coach Scheyer would be losing a majority of the 24-25 roster to the draft.
With that being said, Scheyer did a fantastic job retaining the players he could. Everyone knew the 3 main freshmen in Flagg, Knueppel, and Maluach were going to enter the draft. Sion James and Tyrese Proctor also followed them by entering their names into the draft. After learning Isaiah Evans, Pat Ngongba, Caleb Foster, and Maliq Brown all announced they would return to the Blue Devils this upcoming season, Scheyer received some great news.
While Scheyer didn't do much work in the portal picking up commitments from Rice Center Ifeanyi Ufochukwu and Washington St forward Cedric Coward. He would sadly receive the news shortly after his commitment that Cedric Coward would remain in the NBA Draft and not play for the Blue Devils this next season. Although he didnt do much work with getting commits in the portal he pulled off something unreal with having 0 players from the 24-25 team enter the transfer portal, something that's almost unheard of in the current state if the sport.
You might be wondering how Duke got such a high grade while getting no transfer commits and losing the majority of the team to the draft. That's because for the 2nd year in a row Scheyer is bringing in the #1 recruiting class in the country. Scheyer will be bring in 3 5-stars in Cameron Boozer, a 6-9 Forward, Nikolas Khamenia, a 6-8 Forward, and Dame Sarr, a 6-7 Guard/Forward from Italy. Scheyer is also bringing in Sebastian Wilkins, a 6-8 Forward and Cameron Boozer's brother, Cayden Boozer, a 6-4 Guard. After a disappointing finish to the season, do you think this upcoming Duke team has what it takes to get over the hump and win their 6th National Title.