The Duke Blue Devils and Jon Scheyer are officially on commit watch.
For a little while now, Scheyer and Co. have been putting in serious work to potentially land 5-star transfer John Blackwell, who has been a total force in recent years for Wisconsin and Greg Gard. Well, he just made his way to Durham for an official visit and things have been going great for him.
Front-court search may not be over for Duke with 3 portal targets still in play
So much in fact, it looks like he could be getting ready to shut down his recruitment. In case you missed it, recruiting guru Joe Tipton put in his official prediction for the Blue Devils to come out on top of this massive recruiting battle. Should that happen, it'd be a brutal blow for UCLA and Louisville, who have been listed as the presumed finalists.
NEW: On3's @JoeTipton has logged an expert prediction for Duke to land Wisconsin star transfer guard John Blackwell😈https://t.co/RCCXGFitCd pic.twitter.com/NhL7umqE8p
— On3 (@On3) April 20, 2026
Duke appears to be on the verge of landing 5-star transfer John Blackwell
Should this happen, it's going to be major for Scheyer, as Blackwell would immediately become one of the top players in the ACC. Preventing him from joining Pat Kelsey in Louisville would also be a major victory for the Blue Devils, as the Cardinals have been breaking the bank in bringing in top targets.
Thus far, Kelsey and Louisville have received transfer commitments from Flory Bidguna, Jackson Shelstad and Karter Knox. Bidguna is ranked five stars and the No. 1 player in the transfer portal via the 247Sports rankings. That pledge alone raised plenty of eyebrows.
Adding Shelstad and Knox only made things even sweeter for Kelsey, while there's also been plenty of buzz that Blackwell could suit up for him too. However, Duke is doing everything possible to prevent that from happening, as Scheyer indeed wants him bad.
With Louisville's recent success, it had plenty of people thinking that maybe Kelsey and Co. would be ready to overtake the top of the standings next year and give the Blue Devils a run for their money. Not so fast, as Scheyer wants to remind Louisville and everyone else in the conference that Duke will take a backseat to no one.
Just recently, getting back Cayden Boozer, which was expected, brought loads of smiles to plenty of faces. Patrick Ngongba went ahead and followed suit, which also had fans pretty dang fired up. Slowly but surely, the lineup for next season is starting to take shape. Getting back Dame Sarr would be pretty dang sweet, but signing Blackwell would of course be the cherry on top. Plenty of signs are pointing to that happening, which would result in bad news for Louisville and Kelsey, no doubt.
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