NAME Josh McRoberts
PROFESSION Starting forward, Duke
HOME BASE Carmel, Indiana
AGE 18
McRoberts must be something out of a Duke girl’s two-and-a-half-hour-seminar daydream.
The soon-to-be freshman stands a muscular 6-foot-10 with a baby face and so-hot-right-now floppy hair. His mom says he’s compassionate and sensitive and adds that his Midwestern aw-shucks humility is genuine. He spent his free time in high school tutoring children with developmental disabilities, including one boy with Down Syndrome who still calls the McRoberts household often—always looking for his friend Josh.
So he’s definitely got it going on.
And, oh yeah, some people think the kid might be a pretty good basketball player, too.
Pretty good to the tune of being the consensus top forward in the Class of 2005 and a potential top-10 selection in the NBA draft had he decided to skip Duke. Pretty good like 17.9 points, 11.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 2.7 blocked shots per game his senior year at Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana. Pretty good as in very likely an immediate starter for the National Championship-contending Blue Devils.
But still, just pretty good, if you talk to him. Just ask his mom.
“He’s so humble,” Jennifer McRoberts says. “He does not look at himself as a star—never has and never will.”
Though the kid they called “Baby J” when he was starting for the varsity as a freshman might not think he’s anything special, just about everyone who has ever seen him play disagrees. His sweet outside shot and ball-handling skills just don’t belong on someone so large.
But he loves mixing it up in the lane, and his strong frame and array of low-post moves make him a force down low. The left-hander plays defense; he’s great at finding the open man. His high school coach says he’s a basketball genius.
And McRoberts is definitely not a “white-men-can’t-jump” cadaver in Nikes—he placed second in the McDonald’s All-America Slam Dunk Contest. Think the through-the-legs slam he threw down in that competition won’t be enough to get the Cameron Crazies excited?
Sure, he could wind up squandering all that potential and athleticism—Shavlik Randolph, once the top-rated forward in his class, comes to mind—but don’t bet on it.
“I don’t know how to say this, but he always has to win at everything,” his mom admits, almost begrudgingly. “He’s just so competitive.”
Talented, fiery and good-looking? It’s enough to earn him a starring role in any Duke fan’s daydream about cutting down the nets at the Final Four.
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