The Duke Blue Devils were just passed up in the rankings of 2016 recruiting classes by Michigan State when they received a commitment from Miles Bridges. Both of those teams are still in on consensus top three recruit Josh Jackson but Duke is still looking at other players as well as they look to take back that number one spot. Along with top overall recruit Harry Giles, Mike Krzyzewski is going hard after center Marques Bolden and it seems as though Bolden is heavily leaning towards Duke at the moment, according to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv.
Duke has already received commitments from small forward Jayson Tatum (five-star), power forward Javin DeLaurier (four-star) and point guard Frank Jackson (five-star) for their 2016 class but they show no signs of slowing down. They are still the supposed frontrunners for Giles and after missing out on Wenyen Gabriel they really want Bolden.
Bolden is ranked as the number 20 player overall and second best center in the 2016 class, according to ESPN. The 6 foot-10 center is from Dallas, Texas but the only Texas schools he is considering are TCU and Baylor. Bolden has already visited Duke twice and will likely head back for a third time in October. He is also former high school teammates with current Duke player, Matt Jones, who helped show Bolden around the campus. Bolden seemed excited about the prospect of joining Duke's already loaded 2016 class.
"I think I will fit in very well. I've become close with the guys that are already going there, like Jayson and Frank and Javin so we're trying to build that relationship. I think it would be a pretty good fit if I were to go there," said Bolden.
Bolden is also considering Kansas and Kentucky among others but as of right now it seems as though Duke is a pretty heavy favorite as 247 Sports gives them a 74 percent chance to land the five-star center. Bolden plans to make his college decision sometime during the winter probably "around December or January" as he wants to be able to focus on his senior year of high school but his decision will have a major impact on the 2016 recruiting class rankings.
