It’s Official: Stanley Borden Joins Duke Basketball

For those who may have missed it, in Part IV of our Duke preview, we mentioned that Stanley Borden had been added as a walk-on.

He’s pretty unusual too.

You don’t typically get 7-0 walk-ons at small, academically elite schools. You might at Ohio State or Florida, but Duke? We wonder how many 7-0 guys who aren’t athletes have ever enrolled at Duke.

Can he play?

Well at least a little bit.

Borden played for the Portuguese U20 National Team and the Besiktas J.K. U18 team, a Turkish pro team. According to the Duke Chronicle, he has range and can pass too.

He’ll get better too because he’s going to see Mark Williams, Theo John and Paolo Banchero every day and those guys will force him to get better.

Look at it this way: at a minimum he provides practice depth and as a gamble, well why not? You’re not losing anything. And the last 7-0 walk-on anywhere we can remember turned out to be pretty good: Dikembe Mutombo.

So let’s just see what Borden can do. Certainly he has an interesting background.