Forget February. Groundhog Day happens in the fall.
It often goes something like this: Hype the ceiling of a roster headlined by a generational first-rounder, a couple sophomore starters and a spinning door of four- and five-star freshmen with concerns that it may lack experience. Come March, Duke loses a close tournament game to a more veteran team, prompting fans to wish their team had more veterans of its own.
I’m being hyperbolic. But the basic sentiment seems to reflect how many people have felt recently about Duke’s freshman-focused approach to roster construction. Despite a level of success most college basketball fan bases would sacrifice a limb for, there seems to be a lot of grumbling from title-starved fans about Duke’s perceived lack of experience and depth, and how it keeps costing the team in March.
I want to address those fans with some good news. Amidst some sameness, there’s a change in this year’s Groundhog Day programming. To complement yet another top-ranked recruiting class, Duke added valuable pieces in the portal — Mason Gillis from Purdue, Sion James from Tulane, Maliq Brown from Syracuse — who will all likely see substantial minutes.
That’s almost unheard of in Durham. And in this new age of college hoops, it’s a vital shift if Duke hopes to play basketball in April. If it works as well as I think it will, I also believe it will become a regular offseason ritual in the same way five-star, one-and-done recruiting has.
Duke has had portal pieces before (Ryan Young, Jacob Grandison, Theo John, to name a few) but they hardly fought for starting minutes or put up competitive scoring numbers. That’s different this year.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about college basketball in the last few years, it’s that the portal is the most effective method to address roster deficiencies. With NIL deals now legal and fifth-, sixth- and seventh-year seniors playing college ball, experience is more valuable and available than ever before.
As a result, it has become increasingly difficult for young rosters, no matter how talented, to deliver consistently. That’s not to speak of the depth the portal can add, since it allows teams to address needs after players like Jared McCain and Kyle Filipowski leave for the NBA and would-be depth pieces like TJ Power and Sean Stewart head elsewhere.
Before we get into why I think Scheyer’s use of the portal is so astute and so timely, we should understand how teams have used the portal so far. I’ve observed three categories of teams:
1. Use primarily the portal rather than elite recruiting to form a roster, focusing on experience and the hope that the group will click. Think 2023-24 N.C. State — although the team made a run to the Final Four, no starter was recruited by the Wolfpack.
2. Go all-in on recruiting with minimal portal use, secure top-five freshman classes each year, keep the players who aren’t one-and-done and use them as sophomores or juniors to lead new recruits. This has been Duke’s preference since the early 2010s. The Blue Devils haven’t had a recruiting class ranked outside the top six since winning the national title in 2015, but have only been to the Final Four once in that span and started at least one, often two or three, freshmen every year since, with few impact transfers.
3. Add a couple relevant portal pieces to fill gaps, all while staying hot on the recruiting trail. Examples are 2023-24 UConn and 2021-22 Kansas. Both teams’ preferred lineups featured a mix of veteran recruits like Donovan Clingan or Ochai Agbaji, a dynamic young starter and eventual NBA Draft pick like Stephon Castle or Jalen Wilson and game-breaking portal acquisitions like Tristen Newton, Cam Spencer or Remi Martin.
While the first approach can be successful, it’s overly reliant on favorable timing and how well the portal class fits a coach’s scheme. The second, as Duke has proven, is successful and replicable but often leaves rosters without vital experience and unforeseen holes.
The strength of the third approach — which is reflected in the past three national-title teams, might I add — is that it mixes the potential upside of the first strategy with the talent and cohesion of the second, all while ensuring schematic continuity and minimizing potential weaknesses. It feels like Scheyer has done the same thing this offseason, hence my bullishness.
The best part, in my opinion, is that he scouted for his team’s specific needs and who could solve them, while still prioritizing Duke’s strength in recruiting.
As Scheyer said himself: “Do you want to recruit Cooper Flagg going forward? Yeah, you want to recruit Cooper.”
Even with two elite returning guards and a stable of been-there-done-that transfer pieces, Scheyer’s freshman class is still one of his best ever. Instead of letting that fall away to gamble on transfer stars, he’s using the portal to help his elite talent succeed. Scheyer said that he never guaranteed starting spots for Gillis, James or Brown when selling them his vision, instead guaranteeing that if they earn starting spots, they’ll get them.
Talk about sensible and sustainable.
“Our main way of building a team is still going to be through high school,” he said at ACC media day. “It’s got to be the right talent, right character, right makeup. I think the days of six and seven guys in a class, I don’t see that in our future … I definitely see at least four, but as long as it’s the right player.”
Duke got the “right players” — not just to cut the experience gap with other teams but to plug holes and provide answers.
If energy and scoring off the bench was a concern last year, Gillis — the reigning Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year and an elite perimeter threat — is the exact profile Scheyer needed. If defensive concerns in the post hurt Duke last year, Brown offers All-ACC Defensive Team talent. If Duke lacked leadership after three-year captain Jeremy Roach transferred to Baylor, James brings four years of starting experience in New Orleans.
I don’t mean to dig Young, Grandison, John and the other transfers Duke has brought in recently before by praising the new group so heavily. They played their roles well — letting Kyle Filipowski and Dereck Lively II rest without a scoring dropoff, providing tournament experience and a 3-point arm, adding more muscle in the post, etc.
Those three players are, however, Duke’s only transfers since the pandemic to play at least five minutes per game, and their combined scoring average in Durham sits at just 3.9 points. If that were one player, it would sit seventh, ninth and seventh, respectively, in the last three seasons’ scoring charts. Scheyer’s 2024-25 crop all played at least 20 minutes per game last season and averaged 10 points per game in that span. That’s not to mention their defensive abilities and tournament experience.
So while the idea of filling gaps isn’t new for Duke, the quality of its gap-fillers is. By providing a substantial scoring boost alongside 10 combined years of experience playing elite defense on competitive teams, the freshmen can feel less burdened to assume all offensive responsibilities and have help adjusting to the defensive demands of the college game.
With just three portal acquisitions, Scheyer simultaneously built out the roster, improved his defense, added experience and gave his freshman stars enough support to feel less pressure by themselves. Win, win, win, win.
Now is when I must concede that October is far too early to say Scheyer has a perfect roster or that he’ll win it all. But this is, without question, the most complete, deep Duke team I have seen in a long time. It’s not the runaway most talented, but it has addressed its gaps with players who have spent their whole college careers playing those exact roles.
That’s why I believe this tactic will stick. Scheyer’s focus on recruiting means he doesn’t need to win the transfer class rankings and can instead achieve balance with a few specific targets that fit his needs.
This year is a proof of concept for Duke’s new approach to roster construction. And if it’s as effective as I think it will be, feel free to shove Groundhog Day back into winter.
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Andrew Long is a Trinity senior and recruitment/social chair of The Chronicle's 120th volume. He was previously sports editor for Volume 119.