Major shakeup on recruiting trail could greatly benefit Duke basketball

There was a recent major shakeup on the recruiting trail that could greatly benefit the Duke basketball program.

Over the course of several years, there have been college basketball programs that are a consistent force on the recruiting trail.

Duke and Kentucky have been the leaders, but programs like North Carolina, Kansas, and others have also made themselves known with the top-tier prospects.

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However, since Memphis and former head coach Tubby Smith parted ways and the program hired Penny Hardaway, the Tigers have been one of those other schools that are very well known and rising in the recruiting world.

But big and unexpected news hit the Memphis basketball team this week when assistant and lead recruiter Mike Miller announced he would be leaving the program to focus on his family.

Miller helped put together the No. 1 recruiting class in the country in 2019, but that quickly went awry after the allegations that Hardaway helped finance the move of James Wiseman’s family from Nashville to Memphis in 2017 when the top-ranked recruit in the Class of 2019 was still in high school and Hardaway was not the coach of the Tigers.

The rest of the Tigers’ recruiting class was made up of Precious Achiuwa, DJ Jeffries, Lester Quinones, Malcolm Dandridge, Damion Baugh, and former Duke signee Boogie Ellis.

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Memphis was only able to post a 21-10 record (10-8 AAC) before the season was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic as the Tigers were a bubble NCAA Tournament team heading into the AAC Tournament.

Despite its success in the 2019 recruiting class, Mike Miller and Memphis were not able to follow that up with an encore performance, landing just two recruits in 2020, ranking the Tigers with the No. 130 class in the nation and No. 10 in the AAC.

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Miller’s son, Mason, is a rising star in the Class of 2021 and was considered a virtual lock to attend Memphis prior to his father’s departure from the coaching staff.

Regardless, with one major recruiter no longer in college basketball for the moment, the bluebloods, especially Duke, should reap the benefits of Mike Miller leaving the stressful bench and returning to the stands to watch his son’s development.

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