Duke basketball in race with UNC, Kentucky for elite transfer sharpshooter

Jon Scheyer is already looking at prospective players to add to the Duke basketball roster next season.

Less than a week after the Blue Devils saw its season come to an end against NC State in the Elite 8, the Duke coaching staff is taking a deeper look into the transfer portal.

It's somewhat of a foreign land for the 5-time National Champions, not landing a single player via the portal last offseason after adding talent like Kole Grandison and Ryan Young prior to Scheyer's inaugural season as Duke's head coach.

However, this offseason has already been different than last year and will continue.

Often injured sophomore center Christian Reeves entered the transfer portal on Wednesday afternoon, becoming the first player to transfer from the Blue Devils since Scheyer was named as the head coach. It's likley there will be others in the coming days and weeks.

Regardless, Duke has already contacted Harvard's Justice Ajogbor and Stanford's Kanaan Carlyle in the portal. Both players heard from the Blue Devils while the team was still playing in the NCAA Tournament but now the focus shifts more to players in the portal that would be good fits in Durham.

One of those players could be Belmont's Cade Tyson, who averaged 16.2 points per game this season on 46.5-percent shooting from 3-point range, which ranked second in the country. Tyson, in his two seasons at Belmont, posted 15.0 points per contest while hitting 44.6-percent of his 3-pointers.

As one of the top players in the portal, there are many high profile programs that are trying to land the 6-foot-7 guard, as expected.

North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, along with Duke, are the latest programs to contact the Monroe, North Carolina native.

The Blue Devils have a talented freshmen class entering Durham next season, which is comprised of a handful of decorated shooters at the high school level, in addition to players on the current roster who could return for another season, but none have proven as lethal of a scorer at the college level like Tyson.

It's likely the first of many inquiries Duke will be making in the transfer portal this offseason.

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