By: Ben McCormick
June 1, 2023
Last year I wrote an article titled "The Death of the 1,000 point club".
That's because a year ago, it seemed unlikely that Duke would have more than one or two players reach 1,000 career points at Duke within the next decade. At the end of that article, I pointed out that veteran guard Jeremy Roach had a chance to hit the milestone if he scored 545 points last season. He only scored 512.
And so the drought continued. The last player to reach the 1K point club was in 2016-17 — that was current assistant coach Amile Jefferson. Heading into the 2023-24 season, we are seven years removed from any player entering the esteemed club.
Here are some points I made in my article from last year that illustrated the grim outlook for the 1K club and the 2K club (things were especially grim for the 2K club).
Excluding Dahntay Jones, who reached 1,000 career points, but only if you combine his time at Duke and Rutgers — 13 Blue Devils who played all or most of their career during the time frame 2000-2009 reached the 1,000 point club. Three of which reached 2,000 points. Compare that to the last eleven seasons, 2013-2023, in which only seven players reached 1,000 points and zero reached 2,000
Duke produced twelve NBA draft picks from 2019-2022. Zero of those twelve reached 1,000 career points at Duke. Zero of those twelve graduated from Duke. Now compare that to the twelve NBA draft picks produced from 1999-2002, twenty years ago (including Chris Duhon and Dahntay Jones who were drafted in 2004 & 2003). Eight of those twelve reached the 1,000 point club at Duke (and Nate James who went undrafted did as well). Of those twelve, seven graduated from Duke before heading pro.
Grayson Allen scored 1,996 points on his career at Duke, which was heartbreakingly close to 2,000. Had his final shot fallen against Kansas in the Elite 8 in 2018, he assuredly would have reached the mark with just one additional basket. Since Allen fell short, the last player to reach 2,000 points was Kyle Singler in 2011 — twelve seasons ago. Just one year prior to Singler, Jon Scheyer joined the 2,000 club in 2010. Four years before Scheyer, JJ Redick reached the threshold, then two years before Redick, Jay Williams scored his 2,000th point. The largest gap in the Coach K era pre 2010s involved a ten year gap between Laettner and Williams.
I know that's a lot of information, so I'll sum it up: Duke has lacked continuity in its program since the beginning of the heightened one and done era in the early 2010s, and as a result there aren't any players sticking around to break any records. It's difficult to score 1K points when you are only in Durham for a season.
But just when it looked completely dead, Jon Scheyer made changes.
The first offseason following a Scheyer led year has been noticeably different. For the first time since the 1985-86 season, Duke is returning its top four scorers from a season ago: Kyle Filipowski, Roach, Tyrese Proctor and Mark Mitchell. And well, that 1986 team didn't do too shabby if I recall (national runner-up with just three losses).
The return of a few of these Blue Devils came as a shock to media members, fans, and in some cases, both. Filipowski on one hand is primed to be the biggest star of Scheyer's formative years as a head coach. He was mocked as high as 15th on some NBA Draft boards.
Typically when a freshman is a borderline lottery pick, there's no use in holding out any hope, and a lot of big media members weren't giving any stock to a sophomore campaign for Flip. Even Duke's very own former player Ryan Kelly stated on his podcast, "The Better Blue Podcast", with former UNC star James Michael McAdoo, that he thought Filipowski would jump ship. But there was good reason to have believed otherwise.
Before last season began, Flip said that he was in it for the long haul. He commented on incoming freshman TJ Power's Instagram post expressing how he couldn't wait to play with him. Both of those things would seem to indicate that he intended to stick around. However, some Duke fans knew better.
In the past, players had expressed an interest in maximizing their educational opportunities and sticking around for more than a season. Jabari Parker and Wendell Carter Jr. come to mind. But ultimately, the allure of being a guaranteed first round pick in the NBA Draft as a teenager is too good to turn down.
Flip turned it down.
And for many — like myself — it wasn't much of a surprise. Aside from the aforementioned evidence for his return, there was always this gut feeling that he'd stick around. He had chosen to wear the number 30, the same one his former coach had worn over a decade ago. He has a connection to Duke in ways that many freshman do not always have. Flip was a different kind of freshman.
Duke fans hadn't seen a player turn down a definitive first round opportunity since Grayson Allen. And that was by design. Scheyer wanted good players, but he also wanted players who were buying into the program.
Scheyer has been meticulous with his recruiting. He did not seriously pursue a single center in the class of 2023, despite the imminent departure of Dereck Lively II. In my opinion, that's because he always knew Flip was coming back. I doubt the decision came as much of a shock to the head coach — he knows the guys he recruited.
Flip is the perfect advertisement for what Scheyer wants to build: a program of talented guys that can be first round picks, but they care about longevity at Duke.
The days of the 1K point club droughts may not be over for good, but at the very least they will come to a hiatus this November.
That's because Filipowski isn't an isolated decision. Fellow freshman Proctor and Mitchell returned. And Roach returned too, much to the surprise of a plethora of Duke fans who insisted that he would leave because he had exhausted his college career, having accomplished all he needed to before moving on.
I always maintained Roach would play out his senior season, and now I can write definitively that he will not end his career at Duke 33 points shy of 1,000. It shouldn't take the team captain long before he breaks the seven year drought.
The trust in Scheyer's vision didn't stop at the starters though. Ryan Young bought into another season, and despite two talented freshman guards coming in — Caleb Foster and Jared McCain — to join Roach and Proctor, returning guards Jaden Schutt and Jaylen Blakes are returning as well.
In the age of NIL and the transfer portal, that is a full blown miracle. How exactly Scheyer worked that miracle, there's no telling. But he did. Not only did those guys not enter the portal — nobody from Duke did.
The Blue Devils are the only power six program that did not have a player enter the transfer portal at any point during or after the 2022-23 season. They and FAU are the only two programs in D1 college basketball that did not have a scholarship player leave or come in via the portal (not including anticipated walk-on graduate transfer from Stanford, Neal Begovich).
The players are buying into Scheyer, and they are buying into longevity. The 1,000 point club isn't dead. It will gain at least one new member, but maybe even two if Filipowski performs as expected (and players that cross that threshold as sophomores typically go on to rise to the very top of the all-time scoring list). It is true that multiple players entering the 1K club in a single season does not definitively mean that the record books have been saved for good. In fact, in the same season that Jefferson last entered the club, so did Luke Kennard (then a sophomore like Filipowski) and Grayson Allen.
It could just be isolated to this year...but I don't think so.
Duke basketball has seen a pretty dramatic cultural change in just one year. Yes, Roach and Filipowski are primed to break 1K this year, but that likely won't be it. Scheyer has no outstanding offers to any highly ranked big men in the class of 2024. The staff just offered 4-star big Patrick Ngongba, but he is not a top-25 prospect, which at Duke means likely not a starter (never say never though, Flip himself wasn't top 25 until he was a senior in high school). Anyway, if Flip returns for a junior season — a claim that likely has all the "realistic" fans out there already typing up a rebuttal — he could make a stab at 2K.
It's also highly, highly, highly, highly unlikely that, in addition to Roach and Filipowski, Duke loses all of Mitchell, Proctor, Stewart, McCain, and Foster to the draft early after next season. Which means a couple more players could be on 1K point watch in 2024-25, and then perhaps again in 2025-26.
The players Scheyer is recruiting are different. Times in college basketball are different now too. With NIL, there's no better brand to be a part of in college basketball than The Brotherhood.
It's fine to keep your expectations tapered, I get it. So many players have left early in recent years, both expectedly and unexpectedly. From Zion Williamson and Jayson Tatum to DJ Steward and Marques Bolden, not many turn down a shot at the league.
Filipowski, Mitchell, Roach and Proctor did. And so will more guys.
The 2023-24 season will mark the hopeful rebirth of the 1,000 point club, and with any luck it will help pave the way for the resurgence of the 2,000 point club too.
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