Duke basketball: Brothers set to become rivals in heated ACC battles
A pair of brothers are set to become rivals when the Duke basketball program and the Syracuse Orange meet down the road in the 2021-22 season.
Alan Griffin and Adrian Griffin Jr. will finally take the floor together once again, but it won’t be on the same team as the two will shortly become ACC rivals.
Adrian Griffin Jr. will be joining the Duke Blue Devils as a five-star prospect in the Class of 2021 while Alan Griffin has committed to Syracuse after spending two seasons at Illinois.
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Duke had reached out to the older Griffin brother as soon as he announced his intentions to transfer, but he did not include the Blue Devils in his final list of schools.
Alan Griffin didn’t see much time as a freshman with the Illini, but he averaged 8.9 points and 4.5 rebounds per game while shooting 41.6 percent from 3-point range in his sophomore season.
Adrian Griffin Jr. suffered a knee injury that held him out for a portion of his junior season at Archbishop Stepinac High School (N.Y.), but he returned for the CHSAA Archdiocesan Playoffs, in which Stepinac won the title before having the next round of the playoffs canceled due to COVID-19.
The youngest Griffin would not be at Duke until the 2021-22 season, and there is the potential that Alan Griffin could be eligible to play for the Orange in 2020-21, but that took a turn for the worse after Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports reported that the proposed new transfer rule in college basketball, if approved, wouldn’t take place until the 2021-22 season.
Sources: If the NCAA votes in June to allow a one-time transfer rule with immediate eligibility, it is likely to begin during the 21-22 season.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) April 5, 2020
This potential rule would allow players one transfer without having to sit out for a season.
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Regardless of the ruling, the Griffin brothers will have at least one season to play against each other. Alan Griffin will have two years of eligibility left at Syracuse.
In the 2021-22 season, Duke and Syracuse will meet at least two times in each program’s respective home buildings.