Duke basketball: Recruiting insider teases major announcement

A recent piece of recruiting intel might be about a Duke basketball target.

At this moment, only seven of the top 50 prospects on the 247Sports 2021 Composite have yet to reveal their destinations next season. That list includes the two high school seniors who still hold a Duke basketball offer: IMG (Fla.) four-star center Charles Bediako at No. 26 and Hamilton (Wis.) five-star small forward Patrick Baldwin Jr. at No. 4 overall.

Plus, another of the seven, Compass Prep (Ariz.) four-star point guard TyTy Washington at No. 30 in the class, is an electric bucket-getter who heard from the Blue Devils in late March following his decommitment from Creighton.

Also, note that one of these seven remaining undecided gems, IMG (Fla.) five-star big man Efton Reid at No. 23, has already set a commitment date for April 15, one day after the start of the late signing period. As for the other six, they’ve all hinted at looming announcements but haven’t given specifics.

Now, with all of the above in mind, it seems there’s a significant chance that the following Sunday tweet from recruiting insider Joe Tipton of Tipton Edits involves a player on the Duke basketball recruiting radar:

Why some believe the tweet’s subject is a Duke basketball target

Charles Bediako is down to a final five of Alabama, Duke, Michigan, Ohio State, and Texas. Meanwhile, Patrick Baldwin Jr. intends to choose from 10 programs: Duke, Georgetown, Kentucky, Michigan, Milwaukee, Northwestern, UCLA, UNC, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

While the 247Sports Crystal Ball believes the leaders to be Alabama for Bediako and Milwaukee for Baldwin, it does not feel completely out of the realm of possibility that one of the two will pick Duke.

And Mike Krzyzewski indeed might find out — if he and his Blue Devil staff haven’t already — the certain plans of either Bediako or Baldwin on Tuesday.

After all, Joe Tipton has also recently marked the Bediako news with a “coming soon” tag.

In terms of Baldwin’s big day, Tipton made known over the weekend that the sharpshooter’s alert should come randomly. Well, seeing that Tipton didn’t give a name in his tweet about Tuesday’s mystery announcement, then perhaps it could be in regards to Baldwin, who in this scenario technically wouldn’t have attached his name to that date in advance.

Anyhow, for now, we’ll just have to wait for the Tuesday surprise that may or may not involve Duke.

With Friday’s commitment from Paul VI (Va.) five-star shooting guard Trevor Keels, who ranks No. 20 overall, the 2021 Duke basketball recruiting class currently sits three deep and consists purely of five-star talent. The two early signees from the trio are Archbishop Stepinac (N.Y.) small forward AJ Griffin at No. 7 and O’Dea (Wash.) power forward Paolo Banchero at No. 3.