Duke player bounce back from transfer portal
College basketball standings: Jeremy Roach’s entry into the transfer portal and NBA Draft causes Duke to drop to No. 25 and No. 1
In the most recent, far too early Top 25 And 1 rankings, the Blue Devils dropped from No. 3 to No. 7.
Over the previous four seasons at Duke, Jeremy Roach started 108 games; the first two were under Mike Krzyzewski and the second two were under Jon Scheyer. Furthermore, the 6-foot-2 point guard was expected to return to Duke for his fifth consecutive season as a starting point guard and be a key member of the elite team that FanDuel has selected as the 2025 NCAA Tournament favorite.
But he’s going in a different direction.
“I’ll be declaring for the 2024 NBA Draft while maintaining my college eligibility and entering the transfer portal,” Roach said on Tuesday.
That statement suggests that Roach is finished at Duke and will either play professionally or at another university the next season. Most likely, Scheyer will just trade in Roach for a lead guard via the transfer portal who is just as skilled, if not more, than Roach. Of course, I’ll make the necessary adjustments when it occurs. Though the program is enrolling the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class, led by five-star phenom Cooper Flagg, the Blue Devils are now reduced to a team that is expected to return just two of its top seven scorers. For this reason, Duke is down to No. 7 in Version 6.0 of the 2024–25 CBS Sports Top 25 and 1 college basketball rankings.
Based on a forecast that sees the Cougars returning eight of the top 10 scorers (apart from Damian Dunn and Jamal Shead) from a team that won the Big 12 by multiple games and guaranteed a No. 1 seed in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, Houston is still ranked first in the Top 25 and 1. Stated differently, the team led by Kelvin Sampson is returning four starters and adds 6-foot-4 transfer from Oklahoma, Milos Uzan, who started 56 games for the Sooners in the previous two seasons, to the mix. Therefore, there’s no reason to believe Houston won’t be among the top teams in the league once more.
