Even With Another Top Recruiting Class, Duke Men’s Basketball Is Relying on Its Veterans

Kyle Filipowski is one of the most dominant players in the country after returning to the Blue Devils for his sophomore season with more efficiency.

The Duke Blue Devils signed four five-star freshmen for this men’s basketball season because of course they did. That’s the kind of thing Duke does. It happened under Mike Krzyzewski and will continue for the foreseeable future under Jon Scheyer.

But it has become increasingly apparent that the Blue Devils’ season arc is in the hands of their veteran players, particularly their sophomore class.

Senior guard Jeremy Roach is the team leader. Freshmen Jared McCain, Caleb Foster and Sean Stewart have significant roles. Yet it is the trio of Kyle Filipowski, Tyrese Proctor and Mark Mitchell who seem destined to define this season for the 14–4 Devils.

Case in point: Tuesday night at Louisville. Roach limped to the bench just one minute and 11 seconds into the second half against the Cardinals. After sitting out an upset loss to Pittsburgh, the Duke guard reinjured his right leg and was done for the night. He ultimately would leave the KFC Yum Center on crutches.

Precautionary? Maybe. But in the heat of a somewhat surprisingly close game, the Blue Devils would have to finish it without their captain.

The sophomores took over. Proctor had 13 second-half points and a career-high 24 on the night. Filipowski nearly had a double double in the second half alone, 10 points and nine rebounds, finishing with 17 and 15, plus a team-high five assists. Mitchell, who had missed the previous two games due to injury, was a force at the rim all game, racking up 20 points and 12 rebounds. Duke pulled away for an 83–69 victory, improving to 5–2 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Filipowski says the realization hit him during an in-game huddle during that second half. “I’m looking in the huddle and I’m like, ‘Wow, we’ve got a lot of experience,’” he says.

“It’s really everything,” Scheyer says of his veterans. “I thought Flip, Mark and Tyrese in particular, going through last season—we were in moments like this last year and the wheels fell off a little bit. They were the main ones talking in the huddle, no surprise. … The three of those guys stepped up in a big way.”

Those three were part of their own star-studded recruiting class, of course. Filipowski was the No. 4 player nationally, according to 247Sports, Mitchell was No. 13 and Proctor No. 23. They arrived at Duke last year along with Dereck Lively II (the No. 2 overall prospect) and Dariq Whitehead (No. 3).

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At Duke, one-and-dones happen. That was the case with Lively and Whitehead. The others likely would have been drafted but opted to stay for a second season. The benefits have been mutual for the players and the program.

That’s most dramatically true for Filipowski, who might be the most dominant men’s college basketball player not named Zach Edey. Everything about the 7-foot New Yorker is improved.

Filipowski has added about 18 pounds of muscle. He’s significantly improved his perimeter stroke, going from a 28.2% three-point shooter last season to 39.7% this season. He’s also more efficient inside the arc, increasing his accuracy from 50.5% from two-point range to 54.7%. He already has more blocked shots this season (33) than last season (26) and is a much better distributor (55 assists this season, 56 all of last season).

“I think I’ve improved in all aspects of my game,” Filipowski says. “Just really seeing my skill set be a lot more fine-tuned, I believe, it’s great. I’m going for more blocked shots, playing defense on guards on the perimeter, things like that.”

A big part of Filipowski’s plan to get ready for his sophomore season was arthroscopic surgery on both hips. That’s improved his flexibility and alleviated pain he played through all last season.

“Oh man, you don’t even know,” Filipowski says. “It was pretty bad for my left hip, daily, just going through sharp pain. I played through it and tried not to make any excuse or anything, but it’s a great feeling just to feel normal.”

Proctor is finally ramping back up after missing almost all of four games with an ankle sprain in December. He averaged 22.8 minutes over his first four games back, then has been over 30 in each of the last three.

A fickle perimeter shooter, it was a welcome sight for Duke to see the 6'5" Australian hit a career-high four threes against Louisville. If Proctor is a consistent threat from the outside, his ability to drive and create is enhanced, and the Blue Devils are harder to defend.

“I’ve been working on it the last two weeks, three weeks,” Proctor says. “I’ve been staying confident the whole time—my shot hasn’t been falling the way I wanted last year or the start of this year, but the coaches and my teammates keep believing in me. I’m going to keep shooting the ball.”

Mitchell, like Filipowski, has added a layer of muscle and a couple of layers of refinement to his game. He’s been Duke’s best offensive rebounder and is getting to the foul line more often (5.3 attempts per game, up from 2.7 last season). It’s not a coincidence that the Devils lost a physical battle to the Pittsburgh Panthers on Saturday with Mitchell out of the lineup, just as his absence due to injury was glaring in the 2023 NCAA tournament against the Tennessee Volunteers.

Duke entered that tourney on a tear, having won nine in a row and capturing the ACC tourney title. Final Four expectations blossomed. But a second-round matchup with the blunt-force Volunteers showed a difference in seasoning and toughness.

In the opening minutes, 24-year-old Tennessee enforcer Uroš Plavšić sent 19-year-old Filipowski sprawling a couple of times. It was strong, but it was effective—the Volunteers set a physical tone that the Duke freshmen struggled to combat. That game was one of those wheels-falling-off occasions Scheyer referred to.

“I refer to the Tennessee game a lot,” Scheyer says.

Unable to dent Tennessee’s brutal interior defense, the Blue Devils stayed outside and kept misfiring. They shrank from the fight. Twenty-two of their 49 shots in that game were from three-point range, and they made just six of them in a 65–52 upset loss.

“It was a great lesson in how you need to play through physicality,” Scheyer said in October. “Were we completely ready for that? Probably not. We probably hadn’t seen a defense like that.”

Nearly a year older, wiser, stronger and tougher, Duke is more prepared for the Tennessees of the college basketball world. That list, somewhat surprisingly, now includes North Carolina. The Tar Heels have morphed into what Ken Pomeroy rates as the No. 4 defensive team in the country.

Duke visits Chapel Hill on Feb. 3 for the first meeting of the season between the two archrivals. With the Tar Heels ranked No. 3 and the Devils No. 12, this will be the highest-wattage game between the two since their epic Final Four clash in 2022.

There will be the usual collection of freshman talent when these two face off, but also several old guys still in starring roles—Roach for Duke, Armando Bacot and RJ Davis for Carolina. Duke’s chances in that game—and all the other big ones to come—largely rest with three sophomores whose decisions to stay in school are paying benefits.