While the Duke Football program is off to a 2-0 start this season, it won’t be long before the basketball team is on the court this Fall. Excitement for both teams is high, making campus that much more enjoyable. But for Jon Scheyer’s team, they are coming off a tough loss in the Elite Eight to UConn and are hoping to take that next step and get back to the Final Four.
Scheyer and his staff have put together another roster that should be a contender this season, doing so with the No. 1 overall recruiting class, a good transfer portal class and some key players returning. Among the players returning is sophomore Dame Sarr.
After one season at Duke, Sarr is back and looking to improve and help Duke be a title team. Before the season, Sarr was named a breakout candidate by Adam Finkelstein and Isaac Trotter on a recent episode of the CBS Sports basketball show. They named 10 players, including Sarr and it has to do with how good he is on defense.
“If you’ve watched our show, you know that I am a Dame Sarr fan,” Finkelstein said. “He had modest numbers as a freshman at Duke — six and a half points, almost four rebounds, just over an assist per game. Forty, 32, 53 shooting, so very underwhelming. And yet I thought the eye test was much more compelling.”
“Defensively, this guy is legit,” Finkelstein said. “They list him at 6-foot-8. Dame Sarr is 6-foot-8. In fact, the last time he was measured without shoes, he was 6-foot-7½. That was over a year or so ago. So you combine that with a nearly seven foot wingspan, and this guy’s got really compelling measurements.”
Sarr did appear in all 38 games for Duke last season, starting 30 of them and averaging 6.4 points, 3.8 rebounds and one steal in 23.5 minutes per game. He was very good on the defensive end of the floor as well, earning a spot on the Atlantic Coast Conference All-Defensive team. If Sarr takes a step forward in his development, it should mean good things for the Blue Devils in 2027.
