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Player Zion Williamson

Ben Gordon - I had no idea Duke ever looked at him. He would've been great. Not sure if Duke ever recruited him (therefore cannot call it a 'miss'), but I always thought Ray Allen would have made a great Blue Devil.
 
Ben loved Duke but apparently played like absolute horseshit in front of the coaches when they went to see him. He'd have been unreal at Duke.

Ray Allen IIRC, was somewhat of a late bloomer. Good but not great until he broke Shaq's scoring record at some highly thought of tournament. Really smart dude too unlike a lot of the delinquents that Calhoun brought in over the years.
 
Missing on Roscoe Smith seemed fairly devastating at the time due to the Barnes trauma.

It seems like we had a lot of early interest in local players like Quincy Miller, Rodney Purvis, and Dennis Smith that never panned out.

I'm still amazed with this class. Without Kyrie none of this would've been possible. I'll take the title over #1 recruiting classes obviously, but the title team of Singler/Smith/Scheyer wasn't going to start roping top kids in just like guys like Paige, Berry, Jackson, etc. aren't going to be the inspiration to get kids to UNC despite having two super successful years.
 
*Rescue Smith*

We were really grasping at straws back then. Roscoe didn't even turn out as good as Gbinije or Ojeleye, and they couldn't even get minutes at Duke.
 
His junior year at UNLV, he averaged 10.9 rpg. He now plays for the Greensboro Swarm.
 
Cat Barber and Marcus Paige also plas for them.
 
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/scott-fowler/article195806969.html

His stepfather seems like a tool. Fortunately, Zion will play major minutes and get plenty of shots, so it hopefully won't be a source of conflict.

Anderson told me that he had told Clemson’s coaches recently: “You all had a mile-and-a-half lead on the situation. I don’t know what happened along the way. ... At first, I thought Clemson was the ideal place for him. And I still believe that. ... I really believe that. But again, it wasn’t me making that decision.”
 
Didn't Casey Jacobsen really want to go to Duke? But we went with Dunleavy, if I remember that correctly?

And I thought I read somewhere years ago that Baron Davis wanted to go to Duke at one time.
 
Picked Dunleavy but probably could have had both had we thought the 99 exodus - especially Maggette - was going to happen.

Baron was a pretty big loss. Of course, like the Webber situation, we were short a talented bagman at the time. Snyder was decent, but far from Juicy.
 
Baron was a big one. I thought Casey was an either or, bit it was with someone other than Dunleavy.
 
Signing Will Avery probably cost us Baron.

One of my favorite recruiting stories: When Avery committed, K welcomed him but informed/cautioned him that Duke was still going to recruit Davis. In turn, Avery informed K that he gave zero fucks about Baron Davis and that Davis was the one who should be threatened.

I recall K once saying how he loved that self confidence/ bravado and it was at that point he knew Avery would be special.

It’s too bad that same bravado would eventually lead to his making perhaps the biggest mistake of his life.
 
Yep - Will was a nice talent. Coulda/shoulda been an all tme Devil. I guess his departure enabled K to land J Will, on the positive side.
 
krsmith16 said:
Signing Will Avery probably cost us Baron.

One of my favorite recruiting stories: When Avery committed, K welcomed him but informed/cautioned him that Duke was still going to recruit Davis. In turn, Avery informed K that he gave zero fucks about Baron Davis and that Davis was the one who should be threatened.

I recall K once saying how he loved that self confidence/ bravado and it was at that point he knew Avery would be special.

It’s too bad that same bravado would eventually lead to his making perhaps the biggest mistake of his life.
Click to expand...


I love stories like this, and I'd never heard that before. Thanks for sharing.
 
There is another Avery/recruiting story that you guys may like.

Before he committed to Duke, he made a trip to Durham with his mother. He liked it so much he wanted to commit on the spot but K told him his grades were too poor to get into Duke. We'd love to have him but he'd have to put in some work in the classroom. Avery was mad but not deterred. Flashing some of that same bravado, he left the meeting with Krzyzewski and told his mother that he was going to Duke!
 
Did he actually get his grades up, though? Or did he huff and puff and Duke admissions caved?
 
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