The recruitment of five-star 2019 guard Josiah James took a dramatic turn on Sunday, and the news doesn’t sound promising for the Duke basketball coaches.
Up until Sunday, the Crystal Ball at 247 Sports had been heavily favoring the Duke basketball program to land the services of five-star guard Josiah James for months. With just Clemson and Tennessee remaining as the Blue Devils’ competitors, it nearly seemed like a done deal that the 6-foot-6 guard from Charleston, S.C., would soon announce that he would be playing his college ball in Durham.
But on Sunday, according to a tweet by Adam Rowe of 247 Sports, James said that he will be announcing his college decision on Wednesday morning, thereby canceling his official visit to Duke (originally scheduled for Sept. 27).
On top of that, the Crystal Ball just quickly turned in Clemson’s favor. And that makes sense considering James just returned from his official visit to Clemson this weekend. He visited Tennessee the previous weekend.
As of right now, 78 percent of the experts at the Crystal Ball predict James will end up a Tiger. Only 11 percent still pick Duke (down from 88 percent last week).
Although it’s not a certainty James will pick Clemson — after all, he may have loved his trip to Tennessee and only visited Clemson as a way to thank its coaches for recruiting him — this latest news appears to be the worst for the Blue Devils.
That being said, it is not out of the realm of possibility that he already had his mind made up that he would attend Duke — he did take an unofficial visit to the campus at the end of August — and only visited the other two schools just to make sure there wasn’t anything he would be missing at either place. But that’s probably just some wishful thinking from this Duke basketball fan.
The Duke coaches have already faced rejection from three of the 11 players they had offered a scholarship to from the 2019 class. If James does not announce that he will be a Blue Devil, he would become the second Duke target to shock the experts — the first being Bryan Antoine, who committed to Villanova earlier this month — and would supply another piece of evidence that there may be a sudden problem with recruiting in Durham.
Although the Blue Devils remain the favorites to land four other five-star recruits — guard Cole Anthony, small forward Wendell Moore, power forward Vernon Carey Jr., and center Isaiah Stewart — each new “no” from a recruit makes the situation more worrisome for Duke basketball fans.
Stay tuned to Ball Durham for more Duke basketball recruiting updates, analysis, opinions, and predictions.