‘Tis the season. Now that the AAU circuit is finished, many of the top 2013 recruits will begin taking official visits over the course of the next couple months before their high school basketball seasons begin.
The Blue Devil coaching staff already has one official visit lined up for October 6, as they will host Austin Nichols, according to an article by Adam Zagoria of Zag’s Blog.
Nichols will also officially visit Virginia on September 8. Along with the two ACC schools, Auburn, Tennessee, Memphis and Vanderbilt remain in play to land the 6-foot-8 power forward from Eads, Tennessee.
Another piece by Zagoria indicates that Duke recruit Marcus Lee will officially visit Louisville on September 8, Kentucky on October 12 for Big Blue Madness and Indiana on October 20 for Hoosier Hysteria.
The No. 2 center in the class of 2013 according to scout.com, Lee also has plans to visit California unofficially on September 1 and will have an in-home visit with Kansas on October 6. Lee reportedly took an unofficial visit to UCLA over the weekend.
Duke, meanwhile, is the only school still on Lee’s list that does not have an in-home visit, unofficial or official visit scheduled at this time, which has put some Blue Devil fans in a tizzy because Lee has spoken very highly of Duke for much of the summer.
The third 2013 frontcourt player on Duke’s wish list is Julius Randle, who unofficially visited Oklahoma State over the weekend according to various sources.
The top-ranked 2013 power forward according to scout.com, Randle has not released any sort of school list yet.
A recent article by the Sporting News brought college basketball fans up to speed with the recovery of Jabari Parker, the No. 1 overall player in the class of 2013 according to scout.com, who fractured his foot earlier this summer.
The 6-foot-8 swingman from Chicago should be fully healthy come November, as he attempts to lead Simeon High School to a fourth-straight state championship.
Despite ongoing rumblings that Michigan State and Duke lead in Parker's recruitment, Parker’s father, Sonny, sheds some light on his son’s recruitment in the Sporting News article by stating, “He has no No. 1 or No. 2, he doesn’t really have a favorite…”
Narrowing down the list from 10 to five schools should occur in the coming weeks, as Parker schedules his five official visits. It would come as a shock to see Duke absent from Parker’s final list of five schools.
For quite some time Parker was considered the best player in all of high school basketball, but that title now belongs to Andrew Wiggins.
Currently a member of the 2014 class, Wiggins’ days as a rising junior may come to an end soon. A blog post by Drew Franklin of Kentucky Sports Radio states, “Andrew Wiggins is entering his 2012-13 school year at Huntington Prep as a junior, but he’s taking the necessary coursework to reclassify, if that’s the route he chooses to take. According to his AAU coach, Wiggins is putting himself in a position to graduate next spring if he needs to.” However, Wiggins' coach also noted, "He [Wiggins] enjoys being a kid. The other stuff that comes with college and the NBA life, I don't think he's really in a big hurry to rush into that."
Continue to check the Blue Zone on a weekly basis for all of the latest happenings in Duke basketball recruiting.
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