Duke basketball recruiting target ready to name his finalists

The Duke basketball program likely will soon end up on its first 2022 list.

A tweet this week from Joe Tipton of Tipton Edits revealed that Westtown (Pa.) center and Duke basketball target Dereck Lively plans to unveil his seven finalists at 7 p.m. Thursday.

Now, considering that in June the 7-foot-1, 220-pound five-star became the first player to ever receive an offer directly from head coach-in-waiting Jon Scheyer, one might assume the Blue Devils survive the cut.

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Furthermore, it certainly shouldn’t hurt that Scheyer and his crew are set to host the lightfooted 2022 big man for an official visit next week.

Duke basketball staff clearly in hot pursuit

According to recruiting insider Adam Zagoria, both Jon Scheyer and newly minted Duke associate head coach Chris Carrawell were on hand this past weekend to watch Dereck Lively, who recently jumped 15 spots to No. 20 overall on the 247Sports 2022 Composite while adding the coveted fifth star to his rating.

Naturally, the strong attention from Scheyer & Co. also ought to help Duke’s chances to wind up among Lively’s favorites come Thursday evening.

Meanwhile, UNC head coach Hubert Davis appears to be right in the middle of the Lively conversation as well. The same goes for Kentucky’s John Calipari, who officially entered the blueblood-laden recruiting battle via an offer around the same time that the rising high school senior made known the intention to trim down his list of suitors.

At the moment, the Blue Devils have offers on the table to four more prospects from the 2022 class: La Lumiere (Ind.) four-star point guard JJ Starling, Coppell (Texas) four-star combo guard Anthony Black, Sunrise Christian (Kan.) five-star small forward Mark Mitchell, and Montverde (Fla.) five-star small forward Dariq Whitehead.