The Duke coaching staff started its busy week of recruiting last Sunday night in Houston for an in-home visit with the only commit for the 2012 class, Rasheed Sulaimon. The five star SG will be in attendance for Countdown to Craziness according to his Twitter account.
The following night the staff was in Las Vegas for an in-home with 2012’s top player, Shabazz Muhammad. According to his Twitter account, Muhammad will take official visits to Texas A&M on September 24th, Kentucky for their midnight madness October 14th and USC on October 28th. Muhammad will be able to take two more official visits, and while Duke is expected to receive one,
no date has been set. Muhammad is not expected to announce a college decision until the spring.
The Duke coaching staff traveled to New Hampshire for an in-home visit with Mitch McGary last Thursday night. Florida had an in-home visit with the Brewster Academy center on Monday and North Carolina had its on Wednesday. In last Tuesday’s ESPNHS blog, McGary wrote, “I have no idea what I’m going to do at this point.” McGary alluded to the possibility of not being able to visit Kentucky, Maryland and Florida. McGary wrote, “I still want to go to Kentucky, Maryland and Florida, but I’m not sure that I’ll get to those schools just yet. I’d like to get there, but we’ll just have to see.” This may indicate that Michigan, North Carolina and Duke are the current frontrunners for the five star big man’s services. McGary did express interest in a return trip to Duke for a game as he wrote, “I definitely want to get down to Duke to see about the atmosphere that I hear so much about.”
In between the in-home visits with 2012’s top two players, the staff watched the consensus top two players of 2013 workout. Evan Daniels of scout.com tweeted that the Duke staff was on hand to watch Julius Randle workout last Tuesday morning in Dallas. Randle is being pursued by nearly every major program in the country including Duke, Baylor, Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Memphis, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma among others. Randle is the number two player in the class of 2013 according to scout.com. The 6-foot-9 PF is extremely physical and athletic with a rare skill level for a player of his stature. In a scout.com interview at the Elite Mobile 24 game last month, Randle expressed that Duke is his number one destination for Midnight Madness, but his attendance has not been confirmed yet.
After watching Randle, the Duke staff traveled to Chicago Tuesday night to watch the 2013’s top player according to scout.com, and arguably the best player in all of high school basketball, Jabari Parker. According to tweets by Daniels, other notable head coaches on hand to watch the 6-foot-7 SF workout included Roy Williams, Bill Self, Thad Matta, Bruce Webber and Tom Izzo. Parker’s current list of of schools includes Duke, BYU, Stanford, Illinois, Michigan State, North Carolina, Washington, Ohio State and Kansas. Gary Parrish of CBS reported that Coach Krzyewski and assistant coaches Capel and Wojciechowski arrived to Parker’s workout in a limo, which generated considerable buzz online. Randle and Parker are not expected to announce a college decision until next year.
According to Mark Watson of Blue Devil Nation, the Duke coaching staff had an in-home visit with Tony Parker Monday night in Lithonia, Georgia. Parker is set to visit Duke October 28-30 with his AAU teammate, Alex Poythress. The 6-foot-9 center is deciding between Duke, Kansas, UCLA, Georgetown, Ohio State and Memphis.
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