Duke basketball: Talented brother tandem could be linking up in Durham

Talented brothers could be playing together once again, and there is only one program that can bring in both players, the Duke basketball program.

Mike Krzyzewski already landed his first commit for the 2021 class in Adrian Griffin Jr., who is the No. 7 player in the 247Sports Composite Rankings.

On Tuesday night, Griffin’s older brother, Alan, announced that he will transfer from Illinois after two seasons with the program.

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According to multiple reports, Duke has already reached out to Alan Griffin, and recruiting insider Andrew Slater reported that a slew of other programs have also reached out to the 6-foot-5 guard, including Maryland, Pittsburgh, DePaul, Nebraska, Marquette, Georgia, and Dayton.

It would be highly unlikely for Griffin to land at another Big Ten school, but if he were to end up in Durham, he would have to sit for a season and have two years of eligibility left.

If the eldest Griffin were to select the Blue Devils, he would be eligible to play the season in which his brother would enter Duke from Archbishop Stepinac High School.

Alan Griffin’s best year at Illinois came last season, in which he was the leading scorer off the bench for the Illini with 8.9 points and 4.5 rebounds per game while shooting 48.3 percent from the field and an impressive 41.6 percent from 3-point range.

The news of Griffin’s transfer from Illinois came just before Columbia graduate transfer Patrick Tape‘s commitment to Duke for the 2020-21 season.

ALSO READ: Blue Devils land Columbia graduate transfer Patrick Tape

Duke currently has 11 of an allotted 13 scholarships filled for the 2020-21 season and adding Griffin would push that number to 12, meaning Cassius Stanley and/or Matthew Hurt would not be returning to the Blue Devils unless Mike Krzyzewski was to pull a scholarship from former walk-on Mike Buckmire, which seems extremely unlikely.

ALSO READ: An early look at the promising 2020-21 Blue Devils

Due to the new NCAA regulations regarding recruiting visits amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Alan Griffin will not be able to visit Duke, but he has the next best thing in a brother who just went through the same process not too long ago.