Jordan Smith, one of the best guards in the class of 2026, has cut his list to six: he’ll be choosing between Arkansas, Georgetown, Indiana, Kentucky, Syracuse and Duke.
Today of course, a lot of recruiting comes down to who can put together the most attractive package. We really can’t speak to that very much other than to say that Duke will be competitive and that Jon Scheyer has proven to be very far sighted about where the game is going.
No one is going to take a great deal to sit on the bench though so there are limits to that. Smith is likely to play wherever he goes and you could make arguments for any of the schools on his list, although it’s harder to make one for Syracuse right now. Still, it’s a basketball school and any player would be happy to be at a school where basketball is the focus.
All that said, a lot of people think that Duke’s the team to beat and we hope that’s true. It’s always nice to see promising young players arrive, but some are more interesting than others. Take last year, with Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel.
Those guys had many strong points, but one in particular drove the rest: they were intensely competitive. And that’s what what like about Smith: the reports about him that we’ve seen are that he’s highly driven. And that’s a gift that will help in many, many ways. This is a guy who has the potential to drive his team to match him.
