Duke's John Blackwell Earns Top 10 Honor Ahead of Senior Season

It's interesting to say that entering this season, Duke likely won't have its best player be a freshman. 

Duke has a ton of talented players on this roster, including some freshmen, but everyone's looking at John Blackwell to take over. Blackwell enters his senior season with a real chance at first-team All-American honors, a high draft pick, and the ability to average nearly 20 points per game after averaging 19.1 a year ago for the Blue Devils. 

The only interesting question is whether he'll get as many touches as he did at Wisconsin, averaging 13.6 shots per game. 

At Duke, with a roster that's much better than Wisconsin's was a year ago, it'll be interesting to see how the coaching staff wants to split touches. Blackwell is expected to be the leading scorer on this roster, at least according to everyone who's watched Duke in person at practice.

As for how highly touted Blackwell is, he's making preseason All-American lists, getting draft buzz, and everything in between for a reason. 

The Athletic recently suggested he has a real chance to be among the best players in the country this year, ranking him the eighth-best player in college basketball entering the season.

“The top-rated guard in the transfer portal, Blackwell is the most talented transfer Jon Scheyer has had and one of the best players on a championship-caliber team. Blackwell shot 42.5 percent on spot-up 3s last season, per Synergy, and should see more of those playing beside Duke’s dominant bigs. 

“Blackwell’s postseason experience should also be a boon for a team that has melted late in consecutive NCAA Tournaments. The 6-foot-4 guard averaged 20.7 points and 6.7 rebounds in three March Madness games the last two seasons,” Brendan Marks wrote.

We'll see right away what type of player Blackwell will be for this Duke squad. 

The reason is that the Blue Devils are playing the toughest schedule in college basketball. Duke will take on Michigan State, Illinois, UConn, Florida, Texas Tech, and some others all before the start of ACC play.

I'm not exactly worried about Blackwell not competing in those games, given what we saw him do in the Big Ten throughout his career. There's no reason to worry about that right now.

My only worry again with Duke is whether Blackwell and the other guys can mesh enough to where they have the offense we all know they can.