Duke looking to second-year PG Jeremy Roach as backcourt leader

Duke’s frontcourt features multiple five-star talents and future NBA Draft picks. Led by one of the top overall recruits from the class of 2021 in Paolo Banchero, the Blue Devils will give Kentucky plenty of fits in the paint on Tuesday night in the Champion’s Classic.

The backcourt is where the Wildcats will have an on-paper advantage, though. Kentucky will trot out a five-star freshman and a handful of established veterans to take care of decision-making. Duke brought in a four-star point guard from the most recent recruiting class, along with five-star shooting guard Trevor Keels, but the one expecting to take control of the reigns is the returning Jeremy Roach.

For Roach, now a sophomore, to be successful against Kentucky in Madison Square Garden, he’ll have to play better than he did as a freshman.

The 6-foot-1 point guard played over 27 minutes per outing in 2020-21, starting 18 of 24 games played. Roach averaged 8.7 points and 2.8 assists while shooting 45.6 percent from the floor. However, he was just 31.3 percent from beyond the arc and 67.5 percent from the free-throw line.

An injury late in his high school career knocked him off his path of development though, and he’s just now finding his groove. Roach was named to the Bob Cousy Award Watch List during the preseason, which is handed out to the nation’s top point guard. Kentucky’s expected starting point guard, Sahvir Wheeler, also made the Bob Cousy Watch List.

With the weight of being a starting point guard on him, Roach is having to step up as the vocal leader for Duke this season. In the Blue Devils exhibition game against Winston-Salem State, Roach finished with 10 points, seven assists, and one turnover on 3-6 shooting.

“He’s such a hard worker, he’s always in the gym. So his skills got better but I think he’s learning the game, he’s kinda learning what Coach (Mike Krzyzewski) wants and how to get that stuff done,” Duke senior Joey Baker said last week about Roach. “He’s controlling the game, he’s a pest defender, learning ways to impact the game that he might not have known last year. So just maturing a lot, and Jerm’s a really good player.”

“I think I’ve seen Jeremy Roach evolve in a lot of ways but the biggest way I’ve seen him evolve is he’s become more of a leader,” Duke junior Wendell Moore Jr. said of Roach last week. “He’s become more vocal on the court, he’s demanding more from all of us. At the end of the day that makes us all better and I think for him it’s made him a lot better because once he demands greatness and perfection out of us, he has no choice but to do it himself.”

A lot of the talk surrounding this Duke team has been about the threat of Banchero, which is more than justified, but Roach will be much more involved than he was a season ago. Kentucky will need to take him out of the game early in order to prioritize the Duke frontcourt. A packed MSG will be a brand new stage for Roach, too.

With a normal, healthy offseason under his belt now, a lot is going to be expected from Duke’s new lead guard. We’ll see how he handles the pressure Tuesday night at 9:30 p.m. EST.