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Duke basketball: 2019-20 season review and 2020-2021 first-look preview

By Mike Phillips

(Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
(Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /
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CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA – FEBRUARY 08: Joey Baker #13 of the Duke Blue Devils reacts after defeating the North Carolina Tar Heels 98-96 in their game at Dean Smith Center on February 08, 2020 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /

Early 2020-2021 Preview

There is a lot of fluidity with the Duke roster right now, but two things seem certain at this point: there will be NBA exits and a star-studded freshman class coming to Durham. The NBA front is a little murkier to project since a lot of pre-combine events were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Vernon Carey will most certainly go pro and Tre Jones will likely follow in his footsteps since there is little upside for him to play his junior season at Duke. Cassius Stanley is also a guy who could go pro, while Wendell Moore and Matthew Hurt could swing either way.

Both of them would probably benefit from another year at Duke, so let’s assume that they come back without much of an opportunity to gauge their value prior to the draft. They would join Joey Baker, Jordan Goldwire, and Alex O’Connell as the backbone of Duke’s rotation.

The Blue Devils have an outstanding six-man recruiting class coming in that includes four five star players in small forward Jalen Johnson, point guard Jeremy Roach, shooting guard D.J. Steward, and power forward Jaemyn Brakefield. Johnson and Roach are the headliners, but none were as highly rated coming out of high school as Carey or Hurt were a year ago.

They may not be A-list names, but this is still plenty of talent for Krzyzewski to work with this fall. Expect Duke to once again have a lofty preseason ranking, but their ultimate upside will be how quickly this group gels into a complete unit.

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