The 23rd ranked recruit in the 2019 class will play under Coach K in Durham
In a move that should surprise nobody, 2019 five-star forward Wendell Moore has committed to the Duke Blue Devils. It was an all-North Carolina affair for Moore’s final four, as Wake Forest, North Carolina, N.C. State, and Duke rounded out his list.
Head coach Danny Manning was on Moore as early as anybody, but that wasn’t enough when push came to shove for the talented NC product out of Cox Mill. At 6-5, 210 pounds, Moore has been on the national scene for several years now, and is the first Duke commit for 2019.
Moore made the announcement in front of family and friends at Cox Mill auditorium in a news conference that started at 7 PM. He averaged 25.4 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 2.9 BPG, and 2.3 SPG for the Chargers last year.
What Does This Mean For Wake Forest?
Honestly...not a lot? Of course it would have been massive for the staff to land Moore, but it was always a long shot. Moore wanted to play at Duke since he was a kid, and given where Wake has been the past few years this isn’t a surprising result.
Whereas Moore could have been possibly a program-changing recruit at Wake Forest, he simply becomes another part of the machine that is Duke basketball, as Coach K continues to recruit a ridiculously high level.
It is promising that Wake made the final four for an elite recruit, but it needs to start landing these guys consistently to get out of the gutter that it has been in for the past ten years.
Jaylen Hoard is an excellent start for top tier guys, but the momentum has to continue on a year-over-year basis for sustained recruiting success.
The Deacs have one commit already in 2019 in Ismael Massoud (Four-Star, 127th nationally) and we should have some basketball recruiting articles out to update everybody on where we stand with some key guys in the next two weeks.
