Grading Every Duke Starter’s 2025-26 Season
The Duke basketball program may have seen its 2025-26 season end in pure heartbreak, but there’s still tons to be happy about as a Duke fan over this past year.
The Blue Devils brought home their third ACC Tournament Championship in four seasons under head coach Jon Scheyer, won the ACC regular-season crown for the second straight year, and earned a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year.
Additionally, Duke finished the regular season with an 11-2 record against AP Top 25 opponents. Not only was this more victories over ranked foes than any other club in the sport, but it ties the most from any team in a season in the history of the AP Poll.
This year’s Blue Devil squad was one of the most talented in recent memory. Let’s grade each starter’s 2025-26 individual campaign.
Caleb Foster – B+
Caleb Foster’s numbers won’t jump out of the box score, but it was one heck of a bounce-back campaign for the junior. The North Carolina native entered the 2024-25 season as one of the biggest breakout candidates on a national scale, and ended it practically out of the rotation entirely.
In 2025-26, Foster bounced back in a big way, notching career-highs in points per game (8.3), rebounds per game (3.5), assists per game (2.8), and field-goal percentage (44.7), while shooting 39.8% from three on 3.0 attempts a game.
Foster capped it off with a miraculous comeback in the Sweet 16, just three weeks after undergoing surgery for a fractured foot. As one of the team’s best perimeter defenders and one of the best rebounding guards in college basketball, Duke fans are hoping Foster returns for his senior year.
Isaiah Evans – B+
Relative to the expectations Evans entered his sophomore season with the Blue Devils with, he wasn’t consistent enough for a higher grade, though he was still electric.
As a rookie, 82% of Evans’ shot attempts and 78% of his makes came from the perimeter. In his second year with Duke, he vastly expanded his offensive arsenal, finding a knack for attacking the basket and finishing through contact.
The sharpshooter averaged 15.0 points on 43.3% shooting from the field and 36.1% shooting from three on 7.4 attempts a game. Evans tallied nine games of over 20 points in the scoring column.
Dame Sarr – B
Dame Sarr gets a high grade because he was one of Duke’s best and most versatile defenders, but the inconsistent three-point shot drops it back.
In 15 Euro League games with FC Barcelona before heading to college, Sarr shot 44.8% from three-point range as a 6’8″ wing with great defensive instincts. Throughout his rookie year, the Italian showed flashes, but couldn’t consistently knock down the three game-to-game.
On the year, Sarr averaged 6.4 points per game on 32.3% shooting from long range on 3.5 attempts a game. Another college season where Sarr gets that three-ball down mixed with his defensive capabilities could turn him into a lottery pick.
Cameron Boozer – A+
This one doesn’t need too much explaining. Not only was Cameron Boozer by far the best player in college basketball this season, but he put together one of the most dominant freshman campaigns in recent memory.
The 6’9″ forward averaged 22.5 points, 10.2 rebounds, 4.1 assists, and 1.4 steals per game on 55.6% shooting from the field and 39.1% shooting from. three-point range. He went for 22 double-double efforts, including three in the NCAA Tournament, and didn’t score less than 13 points in a single game all year.
According to KenPom’s National Player of the Year algorithm, Boozer tops the list with a rating of 2.942, the highest ever in that metric. Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson, who is No. 2 in the KenPom NPOY rankings, sits with a rating of 1.760, making the margin between No. 1 and No. 2 a rating of 1.182.
Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner sits in the No. 10 spot with a rating of 1.497, making the margin from No. 2 to No. 10 just 0.263.
Patrick Ngongba – A
Patrick Ngongba was quietly Duke’s biggest breakout player all season, improving drastically as a passer and defensive anchor inside the paint.
As a freshman, Ngongba averaged 3.9 points and 2.7 rebounds in 10.6 minutes per game. In 2025-26, those numbers jumped to 10.6 points and 5.8 rebounds to go along with 2.0 assists and 1.1 blocks on 60.6% shooting from the field.
According to EvanMiya.com, Ngongba ranks eighth nationally in Defensive Bayesian Performance Rating and 11th nationally in Total Bayesian Performance Rating. A year after averaging under four points per game, Ngongba is now a projected first-round pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.
