Remember, Duke basketball is still in the hunt for one more 2021 five-star.
Certainly, following Friday’s announced commitment from Paul VI (Va.) shooting guard Trevor Keels, the Duke basketball staff is blessed to now boast three of the top 20 five-star prospects on the 247Sports 2021 Composite.
Keels ranks No. 20 while O’Dea (Wash.) power forward Paolo Banchero and Archbishop Stepinac (N.Y.) small forward AJ Griffin sit No. 3 and No. 7, respectively. Together, the trio represents the No. 3 class in the country and should give Dukies everywhere their fair share of goosebumps when thinking about next season.
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But wait, for Mike Krzyzewski and his assistants may still have a shot to haul in another top-shelf prize that would instantly catapult the Blue Devils to the No. 1 spot in terms of 2021 recruiting efforts.
Hamilton (Wis.) five-star small forward Patrick Baldwin Jr., who ranked No. 1 among his peers for years but has since fallen to No. 4 overall, is that gifted piece.
Granted, the Blue Devils are no longer the 247Sports Crystal Ball leader in this particular race. They haven’t been for months. The same goes for Coach K & Co.’s only other ongoing pursuit, where Alabama is the clear favorite to wind up with IMG (Fla.) four-star center Charles Bediako.
On the flip side, though, it’s still worth noting that two of the eight Crystal Ball picks for Baldwin do still favor the Blue Devils to land the 6-foot-10, 205-pound silky sharpshooter, who has held a Duke basketball offer for almost three years now.
When is the coveted Duke basketball recruiting target going to announce?
It’s possible the delay in announcing his choice is a sign that Patrick Baldwin Jr. hasn’t yet completely made up his mind about playing for perceived frontrunner Milwaukee, where his namesake father is the head coach.
Whatever the younger Baldwin decides, or has already decided but hasn’t yet disclosed to the public, folks shouldn’t expect any advance notice of his decision.
Rather, according to a tweet on Saturday afternoon from Joe Tipton of Tipton Edits — keep in mind that he’s the guy who creatively helps most top recruits unveil their decisions on social media and thereby often knows said decisions before most anyone else — Baldwin’s announcement plan is apparently of the some-random-time variety:
Patrick Baldwin will be that player to not set a commitment date and just commit randomly.
— Joe Tipton (@TiptonEdits) April 3, 2021
Baldwin still technically has 10 finalists: Duke, Georgetown, Kentucky, Michigan, Milwaukee, Northwestern, UCLA, UNC, Virginia, and Wisconsin. And the 18-year-old phenom has mentioned several times in recent months that he has no intention of trimming the list before his announcement day.
So at this juncture, Duke basketball fans and everyone else — except probably his dad, of course — will just have to continue waiting until the unannounced moment when Patrick Baldwin Jr. finally decides that we all should know what is likely to be his one-and-done college destination.