The latest Eye On College Basketball Podcast, from CBS Sports, focuses on the ACC. And when they talked about Duke, they were a bit skeptical about Duke’s portal haul.
It’s fair to say that Duke didn’t go after a lot of portal acquisitions or at least didn’t get many, though they did identify Cedric Coward as a big deal before most of the basketball world realized he was a lottery pick.
That by itself should tell you that Jon Scheyer has a good eye for talent and that he might be pretty happy with the group that he has.
His only two portal pickups were Iffy Ufochukwu and Jack Scott, who is the subject of the latest portal pickup.
Scott is a 6-5 wing who spent three years at Princeton and while he’s unlikely to have a big impact on this year’s team on the court, he could still have a major impact on the team behind the scenes.
And that is also very interesting.
Scheyer has made something of an art of picking up players who don’t immediately make sense or seem like a big deal, but we don’t get a ton of insights into how guys like Ufochukwu and Scott, or Cameron Sheffield, Neal Begovich, Kale Catchings or Max Johns help out behind the scenes.
We can think of two strong possibilities. First with so many young players, bringing in experienced older players who are willing to help mentor their more talented but inexperienced teammates is probably invaluable. And second, with the new changes brought on by the House settlement which essentially ends walk-ons, these sorts of transfers are an adaptation to that.
Walk-ons, while they didn’t play much for the most part, were always valuable. They were willing to help in practice in ways that their more talented teammates weren’t and they did it for just the love of the game and a few minutes of playing time a season.
Ufochukwu and Scott are better than that, and they could play key roles at times. They’re experienced and competent players and they may be called on. You may not know, for instance, that Scott played point guard in high school, which could come in handy in various situations.
Realistically, though they are both surely competitors, they probably won’t play much. They’re mostly here for other reasons. You can probably measure their success best by that of the team.