The focus of college sports fans has been on what they hope is an upcoming fall football season, but basketball, in terms of the schedule, shouldn’t be that far behind.
Practice would be expected to start in early October, which means, working backward, you’d have guys on campus now doing otherwise unseen things – lifting, conditioning, individual drills.
For Duke sophomore Wendell Moore, it already feels like things are off schedule in that respect.
“We got here almost a month later than we normally do, so we lost a month in preparation and training. But as soon as we got here, it was kind of like, wheels going. As soon as we got tested and everybody came back negative, we started training and testing right away,” said Moore, an All-ACC Academic Team selection last season, who played in 25 games and made 11 starts, averaging 7.4 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.9 assists.
By this point in the walkup to camp, Duke would already be engaging in group and live-action workouts, but for now, Moore said the focus has been on individual work.
Which can be tricky with a program like Duke, which has more year-to-year turnover than most.
Duke, expected to compete with still-defending national champ UVA for the top spot in the ACC in 2020-2021, has to integrate seven newcomers into its 2020-2021 roster, including Columbia grad transfer Patrick Tape and six Top 50 national prep recruits, headlined by small forward Jalen Johnson and center Mark Williams.
“The six freshmen we have, in my eyes, are second to none. We have versatility [with] all six of them,” Moore said. “Patrick [Tapé], even though he’s not a freshman, he’s considered a new guy here, and he’s obviously a big piece of what we’re hoping to do here too. Those seven guys have been coming around really well. They’ve been getting better every day.”
Story by Chris Graham
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