Duke basketball head coach Jon Scheyer likes to revolve the majority of his production around elite freshmen, a similar makeup to Mike Krzyzewski. With this new era of college basketball where the transfer portal has run rampant, however, Scheyer has found some gems, specifically in the 2024 cycle when he landed Sion James from Tulane, Mason Gillis from Purdue, and Maliq Brown from Syracuse. Each of these three played crucial veteran roles in the Blue Devils' run to the 2025 Final Four. Duke sealed a commitment from top transfer guard Cedric Coward this past offseason, but he ultimately ended up staying in the 2025 NBA Draft. This year, the Blue Devils don't have any new impact transfers, but that wasn't really needed with so many guys coming back mixed with the nation's No. 1 overall 2025 recruiting class.
However, recent reports have signaled that Duke could be interested in a very interesting forward in the transfer portal. Princeton forward Caden Pierce announced this summer that he would be redshirting the 2025-26 season with the Tigers in order to finish his degree and then transfer for his final year of eligibility in 2026-27. It's a very intriguing situation altogether, but recent reports have said that the Blue Devils may be interested.
Duke basketball reportedly could be interested in intriguing transfer portal forward Caden Pierce
College basketball writer Richard Kent, who specializes in the Ivy League, recently reported that he's heard from sources that Pierce is considering Duke, UConn, and Purdue. Take this with a grain of salt, but Kent knows Ivy League hoops.
Appears with good info from many that Caden Pierce is down to:
— Richard Kent (@Richard37215662) November 24, 2025
UConn- he replaces Karaban immediately and might be able to practice with UConn second semester while still at Princeton.
Duke- he is very tight with Jack Scott who will be a grad assistant there next year and…
Pierce has had an interesting three-year tenure at Princeton. After averaging 8.2 points and 7.3 rebounds on 42.6% shooting as a freshman, he took a massive leap as a sophomore. In 2023-24, Pierce averaged 16.6 points, 9.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.2 steals a night on 54.6% shooting from the floor, earning Ivy League Player of the Year honors in that campaign.
However, his numbers took a big hit in 2024-25, as the forward averaged 11.2 points and 7.2 rebounds on 46.5% shooting.
There haven't been many reports on Pierce's situation as a whole, but he could be a recruit for Duke fans to monitor in the future.