Duke Recruiting: A Whirlwind Recruitment Garners A Major Commitment
Brakefield sure didn’t hit the brakes on his decision
In one of the fastest commitments we can remember, West Virginia’s Jaemyn Brakefield committed to Duke less than 24 hours after being offered.
Brakefield is somewhere between a 4 and 5 star prospect, depending on you who ask, and to the best of our memory is the first kid from West Virginia to come to Duke since Alan Williams who was either a very late Bill Foster or very early Coach K recruit. Either way he left after three years, perhaps aware that he was not well suited to Coach K’s system.
Brakefield joins Jeremy Roach, DJ Steward, Henry Coleman and Jalen Johnson and may push Duke’s class to the top.
The Blue Devils are still shopping for big men and the Chronicle mentions in the link above that 7-0 Virginian Mark Williams is good friends with Coleman so we’ll see how that works out.
The Chronicle also suggests that he may cut into Coleman’s potential minutes which is kind of silly frankly.
First, everyone thought that Chris Burgess would start over Elton Brand and we know how that worked out. Second, no one expected John Smith or Robert Brickey to do well in the post and both did just fine. Same for Chris Carrawell, who played in the post as a freshman when Greg Newton fell out of the starting lineup and shocked everyone by holding his own against soon-to-be-legend Tim Duncan.
The point is we don’t know - and no one including Coach K does - just how good these guys are on a daily basis, how much they will improve by the time they get to campus and just what that particular team will need. We remind you of 1998 when Duke played Kentucky in the regional finals and was winning until UK started isolating Steve Wojciechowski and running plays directly at him. As good a defender as he was, he couldn’t stop it. Ricky Price, who was 6-6 and lighting quick who had had some issues prior to his senior year and lost ground. He was back on the team though and could have had a brilliant role in that game but had not become a good enough defender to do it.
One of the role models that Coach K mentioned to Coleman was Matt Jones, who was recruited as a three point shooter but who became a superb defender when he realized he wouldn’t be able to shoot well against college defenses. Coach K marveled at one point that Jones had never had a bad practice, not even once.
If Coleman emulates Jones, he’ll find what his team needs and he’ll play.
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