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College basketball rankings: Duke's addition of Sion James moves Blue Devils up in Top 25 And 1 – CBS Sports
Duke has the nation’s best incoming freshman (Cooper Flagg) and also the sport’s top-ranked recruiting class, one that includes a total of five top-20 prospects from the Class of 2024. In other words, the Blue Devils are loaded — but young. So it was always going to be important for Duke coach Jon Scheyer to get into the transfer portal and fill out the roster with quality and experienced players.
On Friday, he added another one.
That’s when Scheyer secured a public commitment from Tulane tranfser Sion James, a 6-foot-6 guard who started 106 games for the Green Wave over the previous four years. The 21 year-old averaged 14.0 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.6 steals in 36.8 minutes per contest this past season. His addition has Duke up to No. 8 in Version 22.0 of the 2024-25 CBS Sports preseason Top 25 And 1 college basketball rankings.
Kansas remains No. 1.
James is the third player already with at least two years of Division I experience under his belt to announce he’s transferring to Duke this offseason. The others are Mason Gillis (Purdue) and Maliq Brown (Syracuse). Add returning Blue Devils Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster to the mix, and Duke is now set to have five non-freshmen next season who averaged at least 20 minutes per game at the Division I level this past season. That kind of roster-balance should make things easier for the freshmen even if ultimately this team will likely only go as far as Flagg and the other freshmen prove capable of taking them.
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