Last week, sophomore big man Christian Reeves entered the transfer portal, becoming the first Duke basketball player to announce his departure this offseason. Sophomore forward Mark Mitchell followed suit earlier this week. And on Friday, two Blue Devils players announced their decision to declare early for the NBA Draft, forgoing their remaining eligibility.
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Freshman guard Jared McCain revealed his decision in the following video message posted to social media late Friday morning.
About an hour later, sophomore forward Kyle Filipowski, who is also viewed by some as a lottery pick, posted a similar post.
Filipovski and McCain are the two leading scorers for the Duke basketball team in 2023-24, averaging 16.4 and 14.3 points per game, respectively. Furthermore, they were the only two players to start and play in every game for the Blue Devils, who went 27-9 overall and advanced to the Elite Eight before losing to North Carolina State in Dallas.
As it stands, Duke's basketball program has six freshmen heading into the 2024-25 campaign and seven 2023-24 Blue Devils who remain eligible and are not in the transfer portal, at least for now. Between them, there are 13 potential scholarship candidates. or declared for the draft.
However, third-year head coach John Scheier and his team could lose one or more of the seven returning players listed in the transfer portal and add a transfer in their place. So far, there has only been one report of a player definitely planning on acquiring sophomore guard Tyrese Proctor.
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