Duke basketball recruiting: Jon Scheyer lands a TikTok star

A famous dancer is now a future Duke basketball player.

Centennial (Calif.) junior Jared McCain, a five-star shooting guard with a huge online presence stemming from his upbeat dance videos on TikTok, revealed his commitment to the Duke basketball program on Friday evening. The announcement came minutes before the No. 2 seed Blue Devils began their NCAA Tournament quest against No. 15 seed Cal State Fullerton.

With the addition of McCain, Jon Scheyer has reeled in nine commitments in nine months since becoming the Duke head coach-in-waiting. The 34-year-old recruiting wizard has the Blue Devils comfortably atop the 247Sports Team Rankings in 2022 and 2023 with six five-stars and two four-stars combined.

McCain never officially named finalists in his recruitment. But his lone pair of official visits this year, to Duke and Gonzaga, suggested the Blue Devils and Bulldogs were the frontrunners heading down the homestretch.

What Duke basketball is getting in Jared McCain

As smooth as Jared McCain has been on social media, amassing roughly 1.2 million followers on TikTok alone, the 6-foot-2, 180-pound perimeter weapon is perhaps even silkier on the court with a ball in his hands.

The 18-year-old McCain ranks No. 23 on the 247Sports 2023 Composite and recently drew the following assessment from On3 insider Jamie Shaw:

“McCain is a confident and skilled scorer. His best scoring attribute is getting into the mid-range and knocking down an assortment of pull-ups and floaters. He is a good enough shooter from three, and he can finish at the basket. McCain is a volume scorer and a shoot-first ballhandler. He is a competitive defender and uses his strong and compact frame to be a disruption.”

Duke’s two other early 2023 pledges are Oak Hill (Va.) five-star point guard Caleb Foster and Windermere (Fla.) four-star power forward Sean Stewart.

Stay tuned to Ball Durham for more Duke basketball recruiting news and views.