Duke under Jon Scheyer is the school to beat on the recruiting trail right now in college basketball, perhaps even more so than the program was under Mike Krzyzewski.
That fact was sealed Monday when the Blue Devils officially landed 16-year-old wunderkind Cooper Flagg, the Maine native that electrified the summer recruiting circuits to become the most talked-about recruit in high school basketball. Flagg, rated the No. 1 player in the high school class of 2024 but arguably the top player regardless of class in American youth basketball, picked the Blue Devils over UConn, but his services would’ve been welcomed by every school in the country.
Duke’s recruiting under Scheyer certainly hadn’t been hurting before landing Flagg. Scheyer landed the No. 1 class in 2022 during his transition from assistant to head coach, then signed the second-rated class in 2023 and already had two five-stars in tow for 2024 before this decision. But sealing the deal with the most-hyped recruit in America (despite a hard charge late from the defending national champions) is a clear sign of the Devils’ recruiting power, even without a legendary head coach at the helm.
