Men’s College Basketball 2021-2022 Season Preview: Duke Blue Devils

The college basketball season is just over two weeks away — time is just flying by. To get you ready for the season, I’m previewing the season in men’s college basketball, team by team. In these previews I will highlight key departures, additions, returners and overall DFS viability for each team. These previews will be heavily focused on DFS and fantasy in general, so keep that in mind when I’m talking about the relevancy of a player or team rotations.

We kick things off with the ACC, a conference that severely underperformed in the pandemic-impacted season last year. While the conference will inevitably have a handful of DFS staples for us to use each slate, it still seems like the ACC lost more talent than it was able to gain. With the transfer rules changing after March Madness ended it ultimately led to what was essentially free agency in CBB. There were coaching changes as well which I will talk about throughout this breakdown because new philosophies will mean new strategies for our DFS builds. 

In this one, Duke.

(Check out our full college basketball season preview!)

Duke Blue Devils 2021-2022 Season Preview

2020-2021 record: 13-11 (9-9 ACC), 10th in ACC
Postseason: None

Key Departures | Duke Blue Devils

• Matthew Hurt (left for NBA)
• Jalen Johnson (NBA draftee)
• DJ Steward (left for NBA)
• Henry Coleman (transferred to Texas A&M)
• Patrick Tape (transferred to San Fran)
• Jordan Goldwire (transferred to Oklahoma)
• Jaemyn Brakefield (transferred to Ole Miss)

Key Additions | Duke Blue Devils

• Paolo Banchero (top 5 recruit)
• AJ Griffin (top 20 recruit)
• Trevor Keels (top 20 recruit)
• Theo Johns (transferred from Marquette)
• Jaylen Blakes (top 100 recruit)
• Bates Jones (transferred from Davidson)

Returners | Duke Blue Devils

• Wendell Moore (9.7 PPG/4.8 RPG/2.7 APG/1.2 SPG)
• Jeremy Roach (8.7 PPG/2.2 RPG/2.8 APG)
• Mark Williams (7.1 PPG/4.5 RPG/1.4 BPG)
• Joey Baker (2.9 PPG/1.1 RPG/0.4 APG)

Duke Blue Devils Outlook for 2021-2022

This season will be Mike Krzyzewski’s last as a head coach, as he plans to retire by the end of the year. He will be replaced by former player Jon Scheyer. Expect a lot of excitement during Duke games this year and an electric environment with teams wanting to beat Coach K one last time. Initially, I didn’t have a ton of interest in this team for fantasy purposes, because they looked a tad bit too deep on the surface. Fast forward to the end of October and they’re starting to look much better to me with the season looming. 5-star freshman AJ Griffin suffered a knee injury recently and will miss the first month of the season at minimum. I certainly would never wish injury on a player ever, but these things happen, and when they do we have to do our best as fantasy players to benefit from them. Griffin was expected to be an instant starter for this Blue Devils squad so now minutes open up for everyone else which will help us decipher the rotation much earlier than expected. Let’s take a look at the players who deserve consideration in DFS.

First up is Paolo Banchero, a Seattle kid I had hoped would join the Washington Huskies (my favorite team). That obviously didn’t work out, and despite I was disappointed, I’ll be using him this year. Banchero is a consensus top-five recruit in his class and is an athletic freak. That should cover any growing pains the team might go through without Griffin. Banchero is 6-foot-11 and 250 pounds with a vertical well over 40 inches. His upside is mouth-watering, and he will be someone we see people roster on name alone throughout the year, especially when more casuals come around in March. Banchero’s growth will be aided by the fact that Duke has a burgeoning low-post star in Mark Williams. After barely playing through the first three months of the season, Coach K finally turned Williams loose, and his impact was immediately felt. In his last six games of the season, he averaged almost 17 PPG/7.8 RPG/1.6 BPG/1.5 SPG. Williams became a fantasy star the last few weeks of the season and was on the GPP winning lineup several times. I would expect heavy usage for him as the primary big from Day 1 of the season.

My main concern for this version of Duke is the fact that they lack an elite point guard, something that has been a staple of Coach K’s most successful teams. Jeremy Roach will be the maestro of the offense, a role he was good in toward the last month of the season. His three-point shooting took a bit of a hit and he finished at 31% on the year, a number he will clearly have to improve upon this season. Joey Baker is a potential value play immediately as he could see some additional minutes with Griffin shelved. He offers very little outside of three-point shooting but at minimum price he would certainly be someone to consider. The team will need Wendell Moore to make big strides in his third year with the program. Moore has shown he is capable of games north of 40 fantasy points but has also torpedoed many a lineup with a single-digit effort. Will this be the year he finally finds consistency? Let’s hope so. Theo John is an elite shot blocker coming over from Marquette and was frequently industry chalk when priced below $5k. His high block rate makes him an attractive option when priced low, but career foul issues have brought grown men to tears more times than I prefer to talk about.

(Check out our rankings of the top 100 teams and top 100 players for men’s college basketball in 2021-2022.)

Summary

This team won’t be nearly as deep as it looked in early Summer. Paolo Banchero has all the potential in the world, but it’s Mark Williams who may actually be the best DFS option on the team. Duke may have issues at the guard position this year, but expect Jeremy Roach to initiate the offense, which will give him big minutes early on. Wendell Moore will have to find consistency as the third option with AJ Griffin out for a few weeks. Joey Baker is a candidate to be a classic “non-con hero”, a term you should be familiar with if you’ve grinding CBB DFS at all. You know the type, a player that goes nuts against lesser competition in the non-conference schedule and then proceeds to disappear from relevance in January.