Duke’s pursuit of Colton Hiller is about to get real.
The 2028 five-star wing from Coatesville, Pennsylvania has long been viewed as a Blue Devils priority, and he now sits atop the 247 composite rankings for the class after AJ Williams reclassified into 2027. Jon Scheyer has been after Hiller for a while, including an unofficial visit last season when Hiller watched Duke face Michigan in a neutral-site game as the Blue Devils’ guest.
Now the next stretch of his recruitment is lined up. Hiller will visit Florida this weekend, and he’ll be joined there by another Duke target, five-star 2027 point guard Beckham Black. One month later, on October 5, he’s scheduled to be in Durham.
That timeline gives Florida a real shot to make this interesting. Hiller’s brother, five-star 2027 offensive lineman Maxwell Hiller, is committed to play football in Gainesville, and that family connection is the biggest concern for Scheyer and Duke. The pull of playing college ball alongside his brother is obvious, and it gives Todd Golden’s program a clear advantage in the pitch.
Florida has plenty else to sell, too. The Gators are just a year removed from their first post-Billy Donovan national championship, and they went into last season’s NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed before a surprising second-round loss to Iowa.
Duke, though, has its own powerful argument. Scheyer is still chasing the program’s first post-Coach K national title, and the Blue Devils and Gators are the co-favorites to cut down the nets in 2027.
Hiller is said to be enamored with the idea of playing at Duke, and the school’s track record with one-and-done prospects is hard to beat. Hiller projects as a one-and-done himself before heading to the NBA, and no program has a better history of producing that path than Duke.
Golden has built strong rosters through the Transfer Portal, but he hasn’t signed many elite high school prospects and doesn’t have Duke’s NBA pedigree. That’s where Scheyer will lean hardest as this recruitment moves into a crucial month. Hiller is still early in the process as a 2028 prospect, but these two visits could go a long way in shaping where things stand next.
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Duke Is Bringing A New Reality To Cameron Indoor
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There is more to the arrangement than what will be seen on the floor. Duke said the partnership will also include financial education and counseling for student-athletes, a nod to the off-court side of college sports that schools now have to treat as seriously as recruiting and competition. Duke vice president and director of athletics Nina King pointed to the shared values between the university and Edward Jones, suggesting the relationship is as much about fit as it is about visibility. [Read more 🡒]
Kon Knueppel Just Sparked A Duke Legends Debate Fans Will Love
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It was the sort of lineup built for instant pushback and nostalgia, with plenty of familiar names from different eras and a Hall-of-Fame level reserve waiting in the wings. For Duke fans, the fun now is in the reaction, because lists like this always reveal as much about the selector as they do about the programs history, and Knueppel left plenty of room for the next debate to begin. [Read more 🡒]
Duke Opener Will Reveal How Ready This New-Look Roster Really Is
The season opener will give this new-look roster its first real chance to show what it is, and Dukes coach made clear that the early weeks matter even more when a team is sorting through new personnel and trying to establish an identity. Fall camp brought plenty of competition, and the staff believes the defensive group has carried a renewed sense of urgency compared with a year ago, which should at least give the Blue Devils a firmer baseline as the games begin to count.
At the same time, the first game will also reveal how much stability Duke has found on offense after naming Walker Eget its starting quarterback. The line has already taken a hit with Roman Fina set to miss the season because of a lower-body injury suffered in camp, so the opener will be about more than just execution. It will show how quickly the Blue Devils can absorb a few early roster changes and still settle into something recognizable. [Read more 🡒]