The Duke basketball coaches hauled in their first 2020 pledge on Wednesday in the form of five-star point guard Jeremy Roach.
Without a formal announcement ceremony or any indication a decision was imminent, class of 2020 Jeremy Roach committed on Wednesday to playing his college ball in Durham, where he will be the leading contender to replace Tre Jones as the Duke basketball starting point guard for the 2020-21 season (assuming Jones turns pro after next season).
Mike Krzyzewski and all of his assistants had visited Roach last week to seal the deal, according to a tweet from Stock Risers’ Jake Weingarten.
Roach announced his commitment via a goosebump-inducing tweeted video:
My decision... pic.twitter.com/SPjkPnVqP9
— iam_jr20 (@Jeremyroach10) May 8, 2019
The 6-foot-2, 165-pound native of Fairfax, Va., where he attends Paul VI Catholic, ranks No. 15 on the 247Sports Composite for the 2020 class — he ranks No. 2 among point guards and No. 1 in his state. He sat out his junior season of high school nursing a torn ACL.
Similar to Jones, Roach is not super-speedy but is a true point guard, in that he has a sharp eye for finding open teammates, has supreme handles that help him beat the press, has a soft and accurate floater in the lane, and has the ability and willingness to lock down opposing guards on defense.
Before ultimately deciding on becoming a Blue Devil, Roach had trimmed his list to four schools: Duke, Kentucky, Villanova, and UNC.
The 247Sports Crystal Ball pegged Kentucky as the favorite with 50 percent of the picks — Duke and Villanova were in a tie for a second.
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Roach represents the first pledge to a Duke class that will need to be expansive and plentiful with possibly as few as three players from next season’s squad returning for the 2020-21 season.
Also, he is the nation’s first five-star from the 2020 class to choose a college.
The Blue Devils have five outstanding offers to 2020 recruits: five-star small forward Jalen Johnson, who ranks No. 3 on the composite and will likely announce in the coming months; five-star small forward Scottie Barnes, who ranks No. 4 but won’t likely announce until next spring; five-star shooting guard B.J. Boston, who ranks No. 8 and may also announce late; five-star center Walker Kessler, who ranks No. 16 and hopes to announce before the start of his senior season; and four-star center Mark Williams, who ranks No. 45 and has not indicated a timeline for his decision.
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Johnson, Barnes, and Boston are all friends of Roach and have reportedly discussed playing for the same school. In other words, several more 2020 five-stars are likely to head to Durham.
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Stay tuned to Ball Durham for more on Roach, as well as other Duke basketball recruiting updates, analyses, opinions, and predictions.