Duke basketball: Potential four-year center drawing Blue Devil attention

A promising post player has been talking to the Duke basketball recruiters.

It’d be a rare sight in this one-and-one era for the Duke basketball program to end up with a solid four-year big man. But perhaps that is exactly what Mike Krzyzewski and his staff have in mind when it comes to their potential full-on pursuit of three-star center Jai Smith, who now attends Word of God Christian Academy in nearby Raleigh.

The 6-foot-10, 235-pound big man currently ranks only No. 145 overall on the 247Sports 2022 Composite but has been steadily climbing throughout the past year.

And per a recent tweet from Jake Weingarten of Stock Risers, the Blue Devils are “showing heavy interest” in Smith. Apparently, he’s also hearing more often as of late from Kentucky and Purdue.

As for the schools that are most consistently in contact, Smith told Weingarten that list includes Alabama, Georgia, Memphis, and Ohio. He has planned an official visit to Memphis for this coming weekend.

Now, although the “heavy interest” coming out of Durham seems like a fairly new development, Smith did note to Weingarten back in October that his high school coach had spoken briefly about his skillset with then-assistant Nate James (now head honcho at Austin Peay after the former four-year Duke basketball forward spent 12 years on Krzyzewski’s bench as a coach).

A scouting report on Duke basketball recruiting prospect Jai Smith

In the fall, Jake Weingarten also described what Jai Smith should have to offer the hoops world, in general, as a budding talent in the paint:

“Smith fits the modern-day build that we see all around the game of basketball…He’s a long, athletic, and dynamic forward who can run the floor extremely well.”

Weingarten continued:

“My favorite aspect of his game, and probably Smith’s as well, is his ability to defend and rebound the ball. He’s a hard-nosed prospect with tons of upside.”

So will Smith’s upside ultimately equate to an abbreviated stay at the college level? Of course, that remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the Blue Devils have not yet delivered their first wave of 2022 offers.

However, Duke has lined up four official visitors from the class for June: Westtown (Pa.) four-star center Dereck Lively, Wilbraham & Monson (Mass.) four-star power forward Kyle Filipowski, Montverde (Fla.) five-star small forward Dariq Whitehead, and Bishop Miege (Pa.) five-star small forward Mark Mitchell.