The recruitment of Scottie Barnes will be a marathon race, possibly lasting until this time next year. All the Duke basketball coaches can do at this point to gain ground on the competition is take one step at a time and hope not to have to bow out early.
If they manage to stay in and win the race, then Barnes — who ranks No. 4 on the 247Sports Composite for the 2020 class due to the consistently energetic display of his all-around game — has the potential to anchor the Blue Devils’ 2020-21 roster.
The next step for Mike Krzyzewski and his staff to actualize such a future, though, is making sure to make the next cut of the five-star small forward by continuing to make him know they want him to be a Blue Devil (Barnes attends Fort Lauderdale’s University School, where he has been a teammate of 2019 Duke commit Vernon Carey Jr.