Duke basketball: 20 serious concerns about 2020-21 Blue Devils

Question No. 11 for the 2020-21 Duke basketball team…

Can Jeremy Roach fulfill expectations under a glaring spotlight at the point?

With huge shoes to fill, Jeremy Roach may wind up with the most unfair expectations of any point guard in the country.

Though both Roach and 2019-20 ACC Player of the Year Tre Jones were among the nation’s top floor generals in their respective classes as five-star recruits, Roach isn’t the same style of a point guard as Jones. No, unlike Jones, Roach seems to often aggressively seek out his own opportunity to score early on in the shot clock (he led all Blue Devils in Saturday’s scrimmages with 22 points).

Perhaps most important for fans to remember this season is that Roach is only a freshman and that Jones wasn’t quite ACC Player of the Year quality in his first year of college. Besides, unlike Jones as a newbie in 2018-19, Roach won’t have Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett by his side to make his job considerably easier.

But patience and forgiveness are not virtues of every Duke basketball supporter, especially regarding starting point guards, a title well within Roach’s reach. And in this world full of Twitter critics, constant flak can be impossible to ignore. So whether it helps or hinders Roach’s progress across his freshman year, all eyes are sure to be fixated on his every move along the way.