Duke basketball: Top five candidates to lead Blue Devils in rebounds

Candidates to lead the next Duke basketball team in rebounds: Patrick Tape

Graduate transfer Patrick Tape, who two months ago, all in the span of two weeks, committed, decommitted, and then recommitted to Duke, appears to have the required frame and mobility to serve as a top rebounder. Why, then, did the 6-foot-10, 235-pound Charlotte native only manage to average — primarily against lowly Ivy League foes, mind you — 5.9 boards as a junior for Columbia and 5.1 for his three-year career there?

Well, his mere 22.7 minutes per game across his 2018-19 campaign in New York — he sat out all of last season with a toe injury — no doubt curtailed his production. Yet Tape’s foul trouble has largely accounted for the limited playing time in all three of his collegiate seasons, averaging 6.1 fouls per 40 minutes for his career (7.0 as a sophomore). That, plus the fiercer competition he’ll face both in games and in practice as a Blue Devil, is why he ranks this low here.

Predicted rebounds per game for Tape next season: 5.0