Duke basketball: Giant transfer target now visiting Blue Devils
By Matt Giles
The Duke basketball program is currently hosting a solid transfer.
According to Steve Wiseman of The News & Observer, Northwestern transfer Ryan Young is visiting the Duke basketball program on Thursday. With that in mind and considering the Blue Devils need a backup player of his size and his caliber, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the 6-foot-10, 245-pound power forward soon commits to Jon Scheyer and his staff.
Young’s first 247Sports Crystal Ball prediction popped up on Thursday morning, pointing to Duke as the frontrunner. He has two years of eligibility remaining and can play right away next season.
Moderate production from the potential Duke basketball addition
As a redshirt junior last season, Ryan Young averaged 9.0 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 0.9 assists for the Wildcats — under former Duke guard and assistant Chris Collins — while shooting 55.9 percent from the field and 67.6 percent from the foul line. He had only six attempts from deep, making one, so it’s safe to say he’s not much of a 3-point threat at this stage in his development.
However, Young can score in bunches and against high-level competition, as he showed by putting up 18 points in Northwestern’s road win against Michigan State in mid-January. His career-high is 25 points, which he posted in December 2019.
Young arrived in Evanston, Ill., in 2018 as a three-star recruit from Bethlehem Catholic (Pa.). He then redshirted a year before starting all 31 games for Northwestern as a redshirt freshman. But he drew only six combined starts between the next two seasons.
Thus far, the Blue Devils have reeled in only one transfer: Kale Catchings, a 6-foot-6, 220-pound graduate small forward with a significant basketball pedigree who announced his move from Harvard to Duke on Tuesday.
The expectation is that Jon Scheyer and his gang will add at least one or two more players via the transfer portal, complementing a six-deep recruiting class and the program’s three returning full-time scholarship players.
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