Duke Basketball: Lack of news from Wendell Moore troubling for Duke

The longer that five-star 2019 forward Wendell Moore goes without picking a school, the worse it seems for the Duke basketball coaches’ chances.

No tweets. No quotes. No verbal commitment to join the Duke basketball program. No scheduled announcement.

Nothing. That sums up the feedback so far about Wendell Moore’s official visit to the Durham campus last weekend.

And that doesn’t feel like good news for the Blue Devils.

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Oftentimes, when a recruit returns from a visit after having a breathtaking experience, he commits within a few days after his return home. Well, it’s Tuesday, and that doesn’t appear to be the case for the 6-foot-5, 210-pound native of Concord, N.C.

Did Moore at least enjoy his trip? Nobody seems to know. But it’s easy to assume the answer is “Not really” when there are no words from Moore to draw a conclusion from.

What’s even more troubling is that Moore — ranked No. 23 overall and No. 6 among small forwards on the 247Sports Composite — still has one more official visit on his schedule, and it’s to UNC on Oct. 12. Maybe it was a bit ambitious, but Duke basketball fans were hoping that Moore would cancel his last scheduled visit — as Tennessee-commit Josiah James did to Duke last week — and go ahead and become a member of #TheBrotherhood.

But that hasn’t happened. In fact, nothing notably positive at all has happened for the recruiting efforts of coach Mike Krzyzewski and his staff when it comes to the 2019 class. Never before in this decade has Duke not had at least one commitment for the next year’s squad at this point in September.

In terms of five-star prospects, five have already rejected the Blue Devils. Five others, including Moore, are still reportedly considering Duke. But of those five, Moore seemed to be the most likely to commit before the high school basketball season begins.

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The Crystal Ball at 247Sports currently gives Duke an 87 percent chance to snag Moore — the other 13 percentage points go to the Tar Heels. Moore visited the other two schools remaining on his list — N.C. State and Wake Forest — earlier in September.

If it wasn’t a near certainty that at least three current freshmen Blue Devils would be leaving for the NBA after this upcoming season, not having a commitment in the bag for 2019 wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Unfortunately, though, Zion Williamson, R.J. Barrett, and Cam Reddish will have no need to be in Durham next year. And the same might be true for Tre Jones.

So Duke needs at least one talented recruit to commit soon or panic will set in — at least inside the mind of this writer — regarding what the 2019-20 roster will look like.

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