2024 5-star Duke basketball recruit returning for sophomore season
04/22/2025 08:02 PM
There’s no doubt that Duke basketball is still recovering from its Final Four collapse against Houston. The Blue Devils squandered a chance to win the program’s first national championship since 2015, but now they have no choice but to turn their focus to next season.
Jon Scheyer will certainly have a tough time getting Duke back to the level it was at last season. Freshman superstars Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel are NBA Draft-bound and athletic big man Khaman Maluach is likely to follow them as a projected lottery pick. Point guard Tyrese Proctor is also leaving for the pros, so the Duke team that won the ACC title and the East Regional in 2024-25 is mostly gone.
On Tuesday, Scheyer and company got news of a player who is returning to Durham next season. Sharpshooter Isaiah Evans is coming back for his sophomore season at Duke, according to college basketball insider Jon Rothstein.
“Duke's Isaiah Evans will return to school next season, per release,” Rothstein reported on X, formerly Twitter.
Evans himself confirmed the news with a brief one-word message responding to the official Duke basketball account.
yea
— Isaiah Evans (@IsaiahEvans26) April 22, 2025
Evans was a five-star recruit in the class of 2024, but he struggled to find consistent playing time as a freshman due to the deep crop of talent in front of him in the rotation. Evans played just under 14 minutes per game in the regular season and averaged 6.8 points per game while shooting 41.6% from 3-point range.
Evans saw his playing time dwindle in the NCAA Tournament, likely due to his deficiencies on the defensive end of the floor. After playing 20 minutes in an opening-round blowout of Mount St. Mary’s, Evans didn’t get more than seven minutes of run in any of Duke’s four remaining games.
Regardless, he will be one of the few returners coming back to next season and has the talent to be a very good scorer for Duke. While the North Carolina native was somewhat pigeonholed as a shooter last season, he has shown flashes of three-level scoring ability. Scheyer is certainly going to bring in competition in the transfer portal, but Evans’ skillset will be very valuable to this Duke team in 2025-26.
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