Jon Scheyer and Emanuel Dildy spent Thursday evening at the Las Vegas Convention Center, where the Duke basketball staffers got a look at a pair of major 2027 targets in Nike EYBL Session IV action.
The Blue Devils’ fifth-year leader and his assistant were courtside behind the basket to watch 2027 Duke pledge Kager Knueppel and potential commit Beckham Black go head-to-head as Team Herro edged AB Elite, 52-51.
Team Herro spent most of the night chasing the game before finally flipping it in the final minute. The win pushed Knueppel and his group to 11-2, keeping them at the top of the standings, while Black and AB Elite dropped to 9-4.
Knueppel entered the matchup coming off a big run of production. The Wisconsin Lutheran School four-star power forward, a 6-foot-10, 225-pound stretch-four who recently climbed to No. 22 overall on the 247Sports 2027 Composite, had been averaging 16.0 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game while shooting 50.6 percent from 3-point range.
But against AB Elite, he had a quieter night. He finished with five points, nine rebounds, one assist and three blocks, going 2-for-8 from the field and 1-for-5 from deep.
Black, meanwhile, was the top scorer in the game despite the loss. The 6-foot-3, 180-pound point guard from Southeastern Prep Academy finished with 18 points and six points against Team Herro, shooting 6-for-16 overall, 2-for-6 from 3-point range and 4-for-5 at the line. He also had a strong stretch in the first half, including a contested 3-pointer after a side step that pushed him to 11 points.
Black picked up a Duke offer in May and is one of three undecided names on the Blue Devils’ 2027 board. He’s currently No. 2 overall on the 247Sports 2027 Composite and already has roughly two dozen offers.
Among the schools in the mix is Arkansas, where head coach John Calipari was also in attendance Thursday to watch him. Black has not named finalists or set a timetable for his decision.
The other two Duke targets in the 2027 class are Millenium High School (Ariz.) five-star guard Adan Diggs and Prolific Prep (Fla.) five-star center Lewis Uvwo, who is the most recent Blue Devil offer recipient.
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