As Caleb Foster and Maliq Brown are the only upperclassmen returning to play a substantial amount of minutes for the Blue Devils from the previous season, the Duke basketball team will have a very youthful squad going into the 2025–26 campaign.
This implies that the freshmen and sophomores will bear a large portion of the offensive burden. The absence of consistent output from a large portion of the squad is what left the Blue Devils with a lot of unanswered questions going into the upcoming year. Although they have the potential to be excellent players, the majority of the essential rotation players haven’t demonstrated that they can be important members of a team that contends for a title.
Therefore, there is a lot of pressure on the young players and the expectation that big leaps will be made if the Blue Devils are to return to the Final Four.
Darren Harris, a rising sophomore for Duke, may have a big second season even though he didn’t play much as a rookie.
Harris lost ground and barely played as a freshman when Jon Scheyer brought in the top-ranked class of 2024 recruits. But next season, the shooter will probably contribute heavily off the bench, so the Blue Devils will need Harris to show off his shooting ability.
According to 247Sports, the 6’6 wing was ranked as one of the top outside shooters in his class and the 40th overall talent in the class of 2024. After averaging 17.2 points, 3.1 assists, and 1.9 steals per night for Paul VI Catholic (VA), the same high school that former Blue Devils Trevor Keels and Jeremy Roach attended, he was awarded the 2023–24 Gatorade Virginia Boys Player of the Year.
In addition to being a superb shooter, Harris excelled at passing and defending a variety of positions throughout his high school years. Harris, who is 6’6 and weighs more than 200 pounds, is a Scheyer-type wing on the defensive end of the ball.
Harris played in 21 games as a freshman, averaging 2.1 points and 1.1 rebounds. The shooting ability is there, even if he only made five of his 22 three-point tries as a rookie.
Harris is capable of playing a 3-and-D role that is nearly comparable to the one that Isaiah Evans played as a freshman. As a rookie, Evans made 78% of his baskets and 81% of his efforts from beyond the arc, although he only made 41.6% of them. Harris can step in and offer the same defensive vigor and scoring boost off the bench now that Evans is starting.
Harris may be a player who makes an impact for the Blue Devils, who have an opportunity to rank among the top outside shooting teams in NCAA basketball the following season.
