The Duke basketball program had the #1 overall 2025 recruiting class per 247Sports for the majority of this high school class's recruiting cycle. But, that all changed after former five-star Duke commit Shelton Henderson decided to de-commit from the program and re-open his recruitment.
Henderson later elected to commit to Miami and Jai Lucas, a former Duke basketball assistant coach who was named the next Hurricanes head coach late in the 2024-25 college basketball season.
After the loss, the Blue Devils dropped to the #3 overall recruiting class, but lost a potential starter at the three spot in Henderson. However, now it looks like networks aren't as high on the former five-star forward as they once were, as he's dropped in the 247Sports rankings considerably.
While committed to Duke, Henderson was a five-star prospect and a top fifteen overall name in the class of 2025 rankings, expected to be a big contributor for the Blue Devils in 2025-26. Now, after the network released its final class of 2025 rankings, Henderson has suffered a big drop.
The Texas native is now considered a four-star recruit and dropped to the #25 overall prospect per 247, lower than any of the Blue Devils' 2025 signees in Cameron Boozer (#3 overall), Nik Khamenia (#15 overall), and Cayden Boozer (#23 overall).
Just weeks after Henderson decided to leave the Duke program, his stock has fallen quite a bit.
Now, without the four-star, the Blue Devils' frontcourt depth for next season has lots of questions surrounding it. Jon Scheyer landed one of the top shooting guards in the portal in Cedric Coward, but he is still heavily considering the 2025 NBA Draft. As time goes on, it looks more and more likely that Coward will head to the NBA instead of returning to college, but that decision will likely take lots of time before it is made.
Besides Coward, Khamenia comes in as a talented small forward, and the Blue Devils also have Maliq Brown, Pat Ngongba II, Cameron Boozer, and a newly added transfer center from Rice, Ifeanyi Ufochukwu. Outside of the offensive production the two rookies are expected to have in Durham, there isn't a lot of offensive explosiveness for the Blue Devils in the frontcourt, making it crucial that the program gets Coward to return to school.