The Duke basketball program will not have the top ranked recruiting class for the second consecutive season after Shelton Henderson decided to decommit from the Blue Devils on Thursday night.
Henderson, a 5-star prospect in the Class of 2025, combined with Cameron and Cayden Boozer as well as Nikolas Khamenia to form the No. 1 recruiting class in the country, with the potential to add to it with 5-star Nate Ament.
Now, Duke has dropped to No. 4, according to 247Sports, and are unlikely to move up after reports have surfaced that Tennessee is the favorite to land Ament over the Blue Devils.
Houston, UConn, and Arizona are now ranked ahead of Duke.
Still, Jon Scheyer will have a lot of talent to work with behind the star power of the Boozer twins and Khamenia, who is being talked about in a similar fashion to Kon Knueppel at this time last year.
Miami, who is expected to land Henderson due to his connection with former Duke associate head coach Jai Lucas, currently has the No. 74 recruiting class in the nation behind 4-star guard Dante Allen and international prospect Timotej Malovec.
The Blue Devils are still waiting for news to be finalized on much of its roster after the only public decisions that have been made are Knueppel declaring for the NBA Draft and Caleb Foster returning to the program.
Cooper Flagg and Khaman Maluach will also enter the 2025 NBA Draft while there has been an expectation Tyrese Proctor could join.
Darren Harris, Maliq Brown, and Patrick Ngongba II are expected to remain in Durham with Foster but the biggest question surrounds freshman Isaiah Evans, who might have seen his path at Duke become much clearer with the recent recruiting developments.
A decision on everyone’s future should be announced by next week.