A few days after he visited Duke’s campus, Jaden Schutt said he’ll play basketball for the Blue Devils beginning next year.
A 6-5 guard from Yorkville, Illinois, Schutt is rated as a four-star shooting guard by 247sports.com.
He becomes the third player to pledge to play for Duke next season when Jon Scheyer becomes the Blue Devils’ head coach. Scheyer, currently an associate head coach, will take over when Mike Krzyzewski retires following the upcoming season.
A pair of five-star players, 6-11 center Kyle Filipowski and 6-6 small forward Dariq Whitehead, previously committed to Duke.
Even before Schutt joined that group, ESPN.com rated Duke’s recruiting class No. 1 in the country for the class of 2022.
Scheyer returned to his Chicago-area roots to land Schutt. While Scheyer starred at suburban Glenbrook North High School prior to his Duke playing career, Schutt plays at Yorkville Christian High School about 50 miles from downtown Chicago.
Schutt is an elite 3-point shooter who averaged 24 points per game as a high school junior last season. He played for the Illinois Wolves on the Under Armour circuit this summer.
Schutt picked Duke over offers from Michigan State, Creighton and DePaul, among others. He visited Michigan State on June 18 before spending last week on an official visit to Duke. He also made an unofficial visit to Illinois and had a visit to Florida planned this month.
He told the Chicago Sun-Times on Thursday that his visit to Duke and experience meeting the players and staff shored up his decision to attend Duke.
“The relationship with coach Scheyer and the staff –– it just felt comfortable talking about basketball and other things outside of basketball,” Schutt told the Sun-Times. “There was a level of comfort I had with them that stood out to me.
“It was a great, all-around feeling I had while I was down there and a really cool atmosphere. All the players love it there and they were recruiting me hard as well. It’s a very successful school, both basketball, obviously, and academically.”