Mamma always taught me to never believe everything an AAU coach says, but if Duke fans are willing to ignore my mother, then good news, everybody!
From CBS Sports Gary Parrish:
(Jahlil) Okafor’s AAU coach, on Friday, publicly established Duke as the leader for the supposed package deal.
“I believe there is a great chance that Tyus will go to Duke,” said Mac Irvin Fire coach Mike Irvin, according to the @BlueDevils Twitter account. “If so, Jahlil and Tyus will probably be going to school together.”
Now unless you broke your television 30 years ago and refuse to get the Internet, you already know that the Duke coaching staff has done a pretty fine job recruiting over the years.
However, landing the number one rated point guard (Jones) and number one rated center (Okafor) is a deed usually reserved for John Calipari and the Kentucky D-League.
Throw in Grayson Allen, the #6 rated shooting guard already committed to the Blue Devils, then you’ll be seeing the words “Duke” and “#1 rated class in 2014″ in the same sentence a lot.
Of course, we got a lot of bridges to cross before we get to the point where Dukies can look down at North Carolina’s 2014 class and laugh (currently they’re looking up). Okafor’s father has already said his son is in no rush to make a decision.
Also, unless you are Kentucky, who sees half the team leave after just one season, pulling in pairs isn’t always easy. In fact, I already hit on this a while ago.
For Duke, Okafor seems like a perfect fit (the same could probably be said of all the schools on his short list). Since he already has NBA-ready skills in the paint, I don’t think the Blue Devils would have any problem benching junior Marshall Plumlee for a season and sliding Amile Jefferson to power forward.
The situation is a little bit trickier for Tyus Jones.
Quinn Cook is the current starting point guard and he’s a pretty good one. In fact, he may be the best in the ACC. However, I don’t think he’s a leave-early candidate, which means he will once again be the starting point guard for Duke as a senior.
Will Jones really want to go to a team that has a established point guard?
Now I do believe Rasheed Sulaimon will leave after his sophomore year, so the only shooting guards (so far) will be Matt Jones and 2014 freshman Grayson Allen.
Would Mike Krzyzewski let two 6-1 point guards start along side one another?
Could he convince Jones to do that?
