Duke Recruiting: What Can The Blue Devils Do With Dame Sarr?
Possibly quite a bit.
With Thursday’s commitment by Dame Sarr, Duke’s 2025-26 roster is either complete or nearly so. As we’ve seen, Jon Scheyer prefers a bigger team than Mike Krzyzewski typically did, and although he doesn’t necessarily have a great shotblocker, he’s got the size he likes.
Typically, Scheyer prefers a man defense, but you know Jim Boeheim looks at his team and thinks c’mon Jon...run some 2-3!
And no doubt Boeheim would love this roster. He’s very familiar with the defensive brilliance of Maliq Brown, but Sarr and Evans are both long-armed and would have thrived in Boeheim’s 2-3. We don’t know how much to expect from Iffy Ufochukwu, but it’s possible that he could emerge as a better shot blocker than either Brown or Patrick Ngongba.
Duke might have preferred Cedric Coward to Sarr, but Sarr reportedly has a high motor and a 7-0 wingspan. His height has been listed at either 6-6 or 6-8 but apparently it’s closer to 6-7.5.
Less reported: he has huge hands, measuring 9” long and 10.25” wide. For comparison purposes (hands only) Michael Jordan’s were 9.75” long and 11.375” wide. Wilt Chamberlain’s were 9.5” long and 11.5” wide for another reference point. Big hands are a huge advantage for a basketball player.
If we had to guess now, we’d expect that Ngongba, Cameron Boozer, Sarr, Caleb Foster and Isaiah Evans would be the starters. However, Brown could easily start, and it wouldn’t shock us if Nik Khamenia proves to be a significant surprise and we started to see some great signs from Darren Harris late in the season.
What intrigues us most is the notion of having Brown and Sarr on the court at the same time. You are not going to want to have the ball anywhere near those two guys.
- Pat Ngongba (6-11)
- Iffy Ufochukwu (6-11)
- Cameron Boozer (6-9)
- Maliq Brown (6-9)
- Nik Khamenia (6-8)
- Dame Sarr (6-7.5)
- Isaiah Evans (6-6)
- Darren Harris (6-6)
- Cam Sheffield (6-6)
- Jack Scott - (6-6)
- Caleb Foster (6-5)
- Cayden Boozer (6-5)