Duke basketball's Trevor Keels will remain in 2022 NBA Draft
Trevor Keels will not return for his sophomore season with Duke.
After participating in the NBA Draft Combine last month, the 6-foot-5, 224-pound freshman elected to keep his name in the June 23 draft and leave school after one season in Durham. He announced on April 23 his intention to go pro but was allowed to withdraw his name from the draft before 11:59 p.m. on June 1.
Keels averaged 11.5 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 1.2 steals last season for a Blue Devils team that won the ACC regular-season title and made a deep NCAA Tournament run during Mike Krzyzewski's final year as Duke's coach.
He becomes the fifth Duke player from the 2021-2022 season to depart for the NBA, including freshman Paolo Banchero, sophomore Mark Williams, junior Wendell Moore and freshman A.J. Griffin. All four are expected to be first-round picks. Senior captain Joey Baker entered the transfer portal in May as well as Krzyzewski's grandson, Michael Savarino.
More: Duke basketball captain Joey Baker enters transfer portal
More: Michael Savarino, the grandson of Coach K, leaving Duke
More: Duke's Paolo Banchero will enter the NBA Draft
Keels' draft stock has dropped significantly since his performance at the combine where he had the fourth-highest body fat percentage among all players measured and was the heaviest weight-wise for his position. Keels also finished with the third-worst time in the shuttle run and tied for third-worst in the vertical leap.
The 18-year-old Keels turned heads with his season-opening 25-point performance against Kentucky where he hit 10-of-18 shots and led Duke to a win. But he also scored 20 points twice more over the next 34 games and was either hot or cold from beyond the arc. He had five games with at three made 3-pointers but also had seven games with at least five 3-point misses.
Even without Keels, first-year coach Jon Scheyer will have a stacked recruiting class entering the 2022-2023 season.
Pennsylvania center Dereck Lively II ranks as the No. 1 2022 recruit in the country, Massachusetts center Kyle Filipowski is No. 3, Florida forward Dariq Whitehead is No. 5 and Kansas forward Mark Mitchell is No. 13. Four-star Illinois shooting guard Jaden Schutt (No. 60) isn’t far behind his future teammates along with three-star Virginia center Christian Reeves.
Rising junior guard Jeremy Roach, whose strong play in the NCAA Tournament sparked a run to the Final Four, announced his return to the Blue Devils for a third season, giving Scheyer a ball-handler he so desperately needs.
David Thompson is an award-winning reporter for the USA Today Network covering NC State and Duke athletics. He can be reached at dthompson1@gannett.com, at 828-231-1747, or on Twitter at @daveth89.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Duke basketball's Trevor Keels will remain in 2022 NBA Draft
