How Does Kyrie Irving Rank With Recent #1 Rated PG Recruits?

Kyrie Irving became the first #1 Rated PG commitment for Duke that actually will enroll at Duke since Chris Duhon in the Class of 2000 (Shaun Livingston was a Duke commit and #1 rated PG in 2004, but never made it to Durham.)

While the expectations for Kyrie are sky-high, is it that much of a stretch to predict he will perform at least as well as the last 5 #1 rated PGs to go to college? Let's take a look at their Freshman years:


2002
Ray Felton -- UNC
GM MIN PTS REB AST TO A/T
35 35.4 12.9 4.1 6.7 3.7 1.81

2003
Chris Paul -- Wake Forest
GM MIN PTS REB AST TO A/T
31 33.6 14.8 3.3 5.9 2.6 2.23

2006
Ty Lawson -- UNC
GM MIN PTS REB AST TO A/T
38 25.7 10.2 2.9 5.6 2.2 2.57

2007
Derrick Rose -- Memphis
GM MIN PTS REB AST TO A/T
40 29.2 14.9 4.5 4.7 2.7 1.8/

2009
John Wall -- Kentucky
GM MIN PTS REB AST TO A/T
37 34.8 16.6 4.3 6.5 4.0 1.62

Just by averaging these numbers out, we can extrapolate the following.
**I am not an idiot. I don't expect these to be the actual numbers...

2010
Kyrie Irving -- Duke
GM MIN PTS REB AST TO A/T
36 31.7 13.9 3.8 5.9 3.0 2.01

Compare this to our PG from last year, Jon Scheyer:

2010
Jon Scheyer
GM MIN PTS REB AST TO A/T
40 36.8 18.2 3.6 4.9 1.6 2.98

While Kyrie will obviously not play as many minutes as Jon did last year, he should play more than the 25.7 played by Ty Lawson in 2005. Kyrie will have the ball in his hands from Day 1 and will play in a fast-paced offense more similar to the other #1 PG recruits than to the Duke offense of last year so he will have many opportunities to score and pad the assist numbers. If he can control the turnovers and bring down some rebounds in that high-paced offense, you should see Kyrie's numbers fall more in line with the top tier of these five players than the bottom.

Is it Countdown to Craziness time yet?


*all stats from ESPN.com
*all recruit rankings from rscihoops.com

Team USA U18 Team Update

Congrats to Josh Hairston, Kyrie Irving, and Quincy Miller, Amir Williams, and Austin Rivers for making the U18 USA Olympic team.

2 of the five will definitely represent not only Duke in the future, but also their country in the FIBA Americas tournament. We're still waiting on Quincy and Amir to choose the right blue uniform to put on...

Here's an article about Kyrie's performance down in San Antonio: http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/duke_signee_irving_has_star_potential_96444609.html?ua=m&c=y

For the full team roster, go here: http://www.zagsblog.com/2010/06/16/usa-under-18-team-finalized/

The following guys made the team:

Vander Blue, Trevor Cooney, Abdul Gaddy, Josh Hairston, Kyrie Irving, Quincy Miller, Tony Mitchell, LeBryan Nash, Jereme Richmond, Austin Rivers, Amir Williams and Patric Young.


If you read our earlier post on the Team USA tryouts here: http://dukehoop.blogspot.com/2010/06/duke-recruits-this-weekend.html, you would know that Team USA has the following schedule:

Following the June 16 announcement of the 2010 USA U18 National Team that will compete in the FIBA Americas U18 Championship, the squad will train that afternoon starting at 4:00 p.m. The team is scheduled to remain in San Antonio and train twice a day starting at 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., with scrimmages scheduled against the 2010 USA Basketball Men’s U17 World Championship Team in the afternoons of June 21 and 22, and against the Brazil U18 National Team on June 23.

The FIBA Americas Men’s U18 Championship will feature eight national teams from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean. On March 5 the draw was held to determine the first round groups, and the USA was placed into Group A, along with Argentina, Mexico and the Virgin Islands. Group B includes Brazil, Canada, Puerto Rico and Uruguay. The U.S. will open preliminary play against the Virgin Islands on June 26 at 7:00 p.m. (all times listed are local, CDT). On June 27 the USA will face Mexico at 7:00 p.m. and will close preliminary play against South American rivals Argentina on June 28 at 7:00 p.m. The semifinals are slated for June 29, and the finals will be held June 30.


Congratulations again for all who made the team!

Duke Recruits This Week

As you all know, Summer is the busy time for AAU basketball. Coming up this weekend, a lot of the high-major prospects will take time off from playing with their traveling teams and travel up to the NBAPA Camp in Charlottesville, VA. For a list of all the invitees, check Scout.com here.

For all the Duke targets attending, stay right here:

Tyler Adams, Isiah Austin, Anthony Davis, Amir Garrett, Amile Jefferson, Tyler Lewis, Marshall Plumlee, JP Tokoto, and Deuce Bello.

Duke has recently turned up the heat again on Marshall Plumlee, and it will be interesting to see how Anthony Davis responds after his injury last weekend. Tyler Lewis is always an exciting player to watch, and it will be fun to see how he competes with all the talent on the UVA campus.

If you noticed a couple of names missing, they are probably going to be in San Antonio, Texas for two days starting today trying out for the USA U18 team. There were only 19 players invited, so it should be an honor for all those attending. See the full list here.

Duke has quite a few incoming Freshman and recruits trying out for the opportunity to represent their country:

Quincy Miller, Austin Rivers, Amir Williams, Michael Gbinije, Josh Hairston, and Kyrie Irving have all been invited to participate this weekend. 6 out of 19 ain't bad... Not to mention, former Duke player Jeff Capel is the head coach and Jay Williams will be assisting in picking out the team.

Kyrie actually had a tough decision to make, as he was born in Australia while his father, Drederick Irving was playing professionally down under. He could have played for USA or Australia, but chose to represent his father's birth country and should get to spend valuable time with one of his best friend's and potential Duke backcourt mate, Austin Rivers.

Congrats to all those mentioned as their hard work is paying off in a big way!

A. Rowe

2010 Summer

Coming off an unexpected title run and an elated feeling of satisfaction, I've decided to crank up a little blog to post my thoughts about Duke Basketball. I'm a longtime Duke fan who lives in Durham, has a few connections to the program, and is consumed by Duke Basketball and College Basketball in general in my free time. I decided to use that free time a little bit more productively and keeping my thoughts localized on the interwebs here for everyone to see. I'll update this as much as time will allow, most likely starting after my wedding and honeymoon, when I go to watch the Triangle's best ballers compete in the NC Pro-Am over on the NCCU campus.

Here's the link for the NC Pro-Am: http://www.ncproam.com/

Confirmed guests so far include CJ Leslie, Ryan Harrow, Tracy Smith, Lo Brown, Harrison Barnes, Reggie Bullock, Kendall Marshall, Kyrie Irving, Josh Hairston, Tyler Thornton, Mason Plumlee, Miles Plumlee, Ryan Kelly, Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, Andre Dawkins, Seth Curry, Jerry Stackhouse, and many, many others...

A. Rowe