Interesting nugget regarding Duke basketball champ Amile Jefferson

In more ways than one, Amile Jefferson symbolized a Duke basketball decade.

Yes, Amile Jefferson served as a prime example of what all it takes to succeed these days as a multi-year Duke basketball player under Mike Krzyzewski: tons of heart and a willingness to adapt to different roles alongside tons of different teammates (more on that here in a moment).

Jefferson was an integral piece to the 2015 national champs. He was a three-time captain (2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17). By the end of his college career, he was only 56 rebounds shy of joining the eight Blue Devils in history to amass 1,000 points and 1,000 boards.

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And the 6-foot-9, 225-pound team-first forward is the only Blue Devil to have ever started at least seven games in five different Duke basketball seasons. This includes a brief 2015-16 campaign, where Jefferson started the first nine games before breaking his foot and receiving a redshirt.

But perhaps the most symbolic nugget pointing to “The Amile Jefferson Effect” in Durham is what Ben Swain of Sports Channel 8 recently pointed out in a tweet:

“The 2020-21 Duke basketball team is the first team since 2008-09 without a college teammate of Amile Jefferson on the roster. Nolan Smith’s sophomore season, Jon Scheyer’s junior season.”

Exactly how many Duke basketball teammates did Amile Jefferson have?

So 11 different Duke basketball rosters contained at least one teammate of Jefferson. Altogether, the Philadelphia native was a teammate to a total of 35 Blue Devils, from Mason Plumlee to Javin DeLaurier and a multitude of various one-and-dones, walk-ons, transfers, and others along the way.

Yup, that’s a lot of faces.

With all this in mind, one could now say that the face of Amile Jefferson — who went undrafted in 2017 but has seen action in a total of 30 NBA games — personifies the past 11 years of Duke basketball.

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