Tag: Mason Gillis

Duke transfer Mason Gillis explains why he picked the Blue Devils in new podcast clip

Gillis, who spent four years with Purdue and won Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year last season, said the Blue Devils were always a dream destination.

It was always the Blue Devils for Purdue transfer Mason Gillis.

Gillis appeared in an episode of The Brotherhood Podcast on Tuesday, talking to Caleb Foster about his experience picking Duke and finding a new school through the transfer portal. From Gillis’s words, it sounds like the Blue Devils were always the leaders in the clubhouse for him.

“Talking to my inner circle, I always had to tell everybody ‘I’m biased toward Duke, it’s been my dream to come to Duke, I need you to tell me why I maybe shouldn’t go there,'” Gillis told new teammate Caleb Foster. “And, after each conversation, everybody was like, ‘Mason, you’ve got to go to Duke.'”

Gillis said the people in Duke’s program also drew him toward Durham, saying how he values unselfish teammates who can enjoy the success of those around them.

“We have to be able to push each other toward our individual goals and help each other reach them and be happy,” Gillis said to Foster. “Say I don’t reach a goal and you reach a goal, I’ve got to be happy for you. And I would expect it vice versa.”

Gillis, the 2023-24 Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year, averaged 6.5 points and 3.9 rebounds per game while making 46.8% of his 3-point attempts. He played for the Boilermakers for four seasons, and he’s got 132 games and 63 starts on his college resume.

Duke fans should expect him to contend for a starting role with the Blue Devils and will at worst come off the bench as a sixth man again next season.

An updated look at Duke basketball’s place on EvanMiya’s transfer class rankings

The Blue Devils brought in four transfers in the offseason, and they’re close to EvanMiya’s top 10 incoming classes.

The Duke basketball team lost seven players to the transfer portal this offseason, but they welcomed four more as head coach Jon Scheyer rebuilt the program around [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] and the 2024 recruiting class. Popular basketball analytics site EvanMiya thinks Scheyer did a good job.

The site, founded by Evan Miyakawa, considered Duke’s four incoming transfers as the 12th-best class in the country with three of the four new Blue Devils given five-star grades.

Mason Gillis, who won Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year last season with Purdue, and Syracuse’s Maliq Brown ranked as the 24th and 25th overall players in the portal on EvanMiya’s big board, respectively. Sion James of Tulane came in 54th.

The Blue Devils have the second-best transfer portal class in the ACC, according to EvanMiya’s site rankings. The Louisville Cardinals, in the first season of a rebuild with new coach Pat Kelsey, sit in second.

Scheyer’s been efficient with his time, too. The Blue Devils are the only team within the top 24 of EvanMiya’s class rankings to sit below the top 300 in transfer portal activity.

All four Duke basketball transfers choose new numbers with the Blue Devils

All four Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball transfers will switch jersey numbers as well as programs this offseason.

Duke basketball released its jersey numbers for the 2024-25 season, and all four new faces will wear a different number than they did at their old school.

Syracuse’s Maliq Brown and Tulane’s Sion James didn’t have much of a choice, in all fairness. They both wore No. 1 for their old programs, but returning guard Caleb Foster already called dibs on that number during his freshman season in 2023-24.

Brown will instead don No. 6, and James will wear No. 14.

By luck, the only two returning Blue Devils starters blocked three of the four incoming transfers from their old numbers. Rice transfer Cameron Sheffield ran wore No. 5 for the Owls, but junior Tyrese Proctor wore that number for the last two years and he’ll also be back. Sheffield swapped to No. 13.

Mason Gillis wore No. 0 when he played for Purdue. Even though the number is available (Jared McCain wore it as a freshman last season, but he’d headed to the NBA), Gillis instead switched to No. 18.

Check out a full list of Duke’s 2024-25 basketball roster with updated jersey numbers here.

The best photos of Duke basketball’s transfer players with their old schools

With Duke adding its fourth transfer of the offseason on Thursday, here are some of the best photos of the Blue Devils of tomorrow.

The six freshmen in Duke’s upcoming recruiting class might be stealing all of the headlines, but don’t forget about the veterans.

Four new upperclassmen committed to the Blue Devils over the course of this offseason, each offering very different skill sets.

James, a 6-foot-6 guard from Tulane with eyebrow-raising athleticism, might be one of the best slashers and finishers in the country. Former Purdue Boilermaker Mason Gillis made more than 46% of his 3-pointers last season, and former Syracuse forward Maliq Brown finished the 2023-24 season with an effective field goal percentage above 70%.

Cameron Sheffield of Rice tacked onto the list with his Thursday commitment after sitting out the 2023-24 season with a foot injury. He averaged 7.6 points and 6.1 rebounds across 35 games in 2022-23, however.

Blue Devils fans will need to be patient before they see the newest Duke stars at Cameron Indoor Stadium. In the meantime, here are some of the best looks at the four transfers while they were with their old schools.

Duke Blue Devils now have a top-20 transfer portal class after landing Tulane’s Sion James

After his third transfer on Friday, head coach Jon Scheyer now boasts a top-20 transfer class on top of his historic 2024 recruiting group.

After the Friday commitment of Tulane guard Sion James, the Duke Blue Devils now have 247Sports’ 18th-best transfer class in the country.

James, who averaged 14.0 points and shot 51.4% from the floor as a junior last season, became the third transfer commitment of the offseason for head coach Jon Scheyer. Purdue’s Mason Gillis, who was named the Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year last season, and Syracuse’s Maliq Brown both committed back in April.

The Blue Devils are one of three teams in the top 20 of 247Sports’ rankings with three commitments or fewer. The Kansas Jayhawks (sixth) also only have three players in the transfer class right now, and the Baylor Bears (17th) have former Duke captain Jeremy Roach as one of two transfers.

Duke’s average rating of 93.50 between its trio of new stars is the 10th-highest of any school.

The Blue Devils are also the highest-ranked ACC team in the transfer rankings. NC State, who is one spot behind Duke in 19th, is the only other school in the conference inside the top 20.

Scheyer gets to pair this top-20 transfer class with the top-ranked recruiting class in the country next season, featuring No. 1 overall recruit Cooper Flagg and five other top-50 prospects.

Duke Blue Devils, Jon Scheyer add Tulane Green Wave transfer guard Sion James

Duke adds Tulane transfer Sion James.

The Duke Blue Devils landed their third transfer of the offseason when Tulane transfer Sion James announced his commitment on Friday. On3’s Joe Tipton first reported the decision.

James declared for the NBA Draft while retaining his eligibility earlier this spring. After a pre-draft workout in Memphis last week, James officially visited Duke, and the rest is history.

The newest Blue Devil is listed as a 6-foot-6, 220-pound guard who appeared in 31 games for the Green Wave during the 2023-24 season, leading the team in minutes at nearly 37 per game. He was highly productive, with averages of 14.0 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per contest while shooting 51% from the field. He was proficient from deep, too, shooting 38% with an effective field goal percentage of 59 percent, good for the 84th percentile in college basketball last year.

James’ value to Duke is his physicality and slashing ability. One area Duke has lacked in the last couple of seasons was a guard consistently getting downhill to the lane and finishing regularly. James has the size and strength, coupled with an excellent first step, to be a menace to opposing defenses as he attacks the lane. Half of his shot attempts last year were at the rim, where he shot 62%.

He also played point guard for the Green Wave, highlighted by his 13% assist rate. He routinely initiated offenses for Tulane and could create shots for others even when out of sets.

[autotag]Jon Scheyer[/autotag]’s second season at Duke improved in many areas from year one. However, it was not without turbulence. That’s part of the growth process for a young coach—especially one without any head coaching experience before he took over the job from the legendary Mike Krzyzewski.

After an appearance in the Elite Eight that saw them lose to NC State, it was back to the drawing board for Scheyer and his staff as they look to bring Duke its sixth national championship and first since 2015.

Seven players from the 2023-24 team entered the transfer portal. The type of mass exodus that would have any program scrambling. Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster announced their intentions to return. Duke has six freshmen inbound, led by high school basketball’s best player, Cooper Flagg. The Blue Devils already added Purdue transfer Mason Gillis and Syracuse big man Maliq Brown from the portal.

Duke now has three guards who aren’t freshmen. They can rely on one to bring the ball up. It also gives Duke another wrinkle of versatility, as James can seamlessly guard positions 1-3. Hence, it allows Scheyer to run a full three-guard lineup like this past year or have one of Proctor, Foster, or James come off the bench as a big-time stabilizing force for Duke’s second unit.

This addition also allows Duke not to rely on freshmen Darren Harris, Kon Knueppel, and Isaiah Evans nearly as much and will enable them to ease into the college game.

Duke’s impact transfer portal pursuits are wrapped up. Any other transfers are likely for deep bench depth and are unlikely to be counted on as meaningful contributors nightly.

UPDATE: Dayton sharpshooter Koby Brea no longer visiting Duke

Dayton’s Koby Brea no longer plans to visit Duke next week.

After seeing more than nine players leave the program for the portal or professional opportunities since Duke’s season ended, head coach Jon Scheyer has been deliberate in the transfer portal.

However, it seems like Dayton shooter Koby Brea won’t be a part of those plans.

After a Friday report from national insider Jon Rothstein that Brea would visit the Blue Devils from Tuesday to Thursday of next week, The News & Observer’s Stephen Wiseman confirmed Brea would not take a trip to Durham.

Brea averaged 11.1 points and 3.8 rebounds per game this past season while shooting an NCAA-best 49.8 percent beyond the arc for a Flyers group that posted a 25-8 record and reached the NCAA Tournament Round of 32 before ultimately falling to Arizona.

Duke does still have two transfers so far this offseason. Maliq Brown is officially a Blue Devil, and he adds defensive prowess and energy and is an elite finisher at the rim. Purdue transfer Mason Gillis, who also officially joined the program on Friday, is a sharpshooter who can guard multiple positions along the perimeter. He was the Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year and brings leadership, toughness, and range to hit big shots.

Purdue transfer Mason Gillis officially signs with the Blue Devils

Former Purdue Boilermaker and Duke transfer Mason Gillis made his commitment official on Friday after the team announced his signing.

Former Purdue guard Mason Gillis made his Duke transfer commitment official on Friday morning, the team announced.

Gillis, a 6-foot-6 graduate transfer, won Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year en route to the national title game with the Boilermakers. He averaged 6.5 points and 3.9 rebounds per game, and he connected on 46.8% of his 3-point attempts.

The former Boilermaker played 132 games over the last four years, starting 63 times in that span, and he’s averaged at least five points per game in every season.

Over the course of the NCAA Tournament, Gillis averaged 3.3 points per game. He scored a season-high 16 points against Nebraska when he made five triples. The flamethrowing shooter took more than 75% of his shots from beyond the arc as a senior in 2023-24.

Gillis became the second transfer commitment on Wednesday, aligning with head coach Jon Scheyer just two days after former Syracuse forward Maliq Brown.

Gillis and Brown join returning starters Caleb Foster and Tyrese Proctor in Durham next season as the team’s veteran leadership. The team also awaits Cooper Flagg and five other elite freshmen in the 2024 recruiting class.

New Duke guard Mason Gillis almost exclusively shoots 3-pointers

Across the last two seasons, Duke transfer Mason Gillis took 320 shots for the Purdue Boilermakers. 228 of those were 3-pointers.

New Duke guard Mason Gillis knows what he’s best at, and he isn’t afraid to revolve his game around it.

Gillis, a former Purdue Boilermaker who committed to the Blue Devils on Monday, spent four seasons in West Lafayette. Across his junior and senior campaigns, the 6-foot-6 sharpshooter took 320 total shots.

228 of those attempts came from behind the 3-point line. That’s a whopping 71.3% of Gillis’s attempts over the past two years.

Gillis isn’t just a volume shooter, either. He made a personal-best 46.8% of his triples last season, and he’s a career 40.7% 3-point shooter.

The tendency shows up in his shot chart, too. The Athletic’s Brendan Marks posted a picture of Gillis’s heat map, pointing out that he was KenPom’s No. 4 shooter among high-major teams.

Gillis’s volume and efficiency will be welcomed on a team losing Jared McCain, the presumed first-round pick who converted on 41.4% of his 3-point shots as a freshman.

Latest trend proves this skill is most coveted in college basketball transfer portal

The pursuit of Mason Gillis and Koby Brea in the transfer portal proves college basketball’s three point revolution is in full swing.

For the majority of college basketball’s history, a four-year role player in the Big Ten who never averaged more than seven points per game wouldn’t be praised as a big time addition for the Duke Blue Devils.

Likewise, a guard who didn’t start in the A-10 wouldn’t get the opportunity to choose between the following five schools for his final year of eligibility: Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, and UConn.

However, both Mason Gillis and Koby Brea possess a skill so valuable in today’s game that it feels like we are looking at college basketball’s ‘Moneyball’ moment:

“They hit three point shots”.

Gillis is a 6’6 forward who drilled 40.7% of his three point attempts over four years at Purdue, including knocking them down at a 46.8% clip last season, and he will come in and provide much needed floor spacing, veteran experience, and toughness for this Duke team as they prepare to build around Tyrese Proctor and freshman Cooper Flagg in 2024-25.

Meanwhile, Brea averaged 11.1 points on blistering hot 49.8% shooting from beyond the arc last year at Dayton, attempting over six threes per game. He is now choosing between five of the sports bluest blue bloods, and regardless of where he ends up he will be a key piece for one of the most recognizable teams in college basketball – all because of his ability to hit the three ball.

The NBA has embraced the three point revolution and many college programs are catching on, and as long as this trend continues players who can consistently stretch the floor and hit open threes will remain hot commodities in the transfer portal and NIL era.